The Infant Universe
by Hotaru Winner
Summary: This is an AU fic...Takes place right after the series with a few alterations. The five Gundam pilots have to save the universe from a new power but what's up with all of these girls they pick up along the way?
1. Prolouge

Prologue

  
  


There should have been a sunrise. Duo Maxwell stared up into the inky

blanket of the eternal night. His world, the one he shared with his fellow

Gundam pilots, had changed much more then what was imaginable in the

seemingly short period of two years. 

Ever since OZ had taken over every colony in the known universe, the need for the power gained through the colonies had decreased drastically.

There were no other powers to rise up and dethrone them so OZ simply

decided to cut down the population and wipe out various colonies

occasionally. Now the same people, who had wanted them dead, were now

crying out for their help again. Duo chuckled to himself, five young boys

against the monopoly of the universe. Brothers of mayhem, that's what

they were. Bringing chaos into a world that desired peace.

He looked over at the other four young men who had become his only

family. Wufei Chang was resting up in a tree branch, looking like he was

about to spring awake and continue the fighting that made his blood race.

He was the woman hater out of the five, after his wife was murdered, he

made himself feel like all woman were useless and petty. He was still

hurting on the inside, longing for the affection the two of them had

shared for each other. He was normally a quite cynic but something in the

passion of a hand to hand battle brought out a crazed side of him. His

black eyes went from being calm and undisturbed to having a blood red tint

and taking over his entire body, he truly was a loner, a solitary dragon,

as he liked to put it.

Duo's eyes shifted again, resting on the small figure lying underneath

the tree where Wufei slept. Quatre Raberba Winner, the little brother out

of all of them all in personality alone. All of the sensitivity and

sentimental feelings the other guys lacked rested in that blonde hair blue

eyed "pretty boy" as Wufei often called him. Quatre was truly the

peacemaker, the modest one, and the only one in their group with a heart

that could feel what others did. He could understand what everyone else

was going through but it never went to his head. No one could hide

anything from him, no matter how hard they tried. 

Next to Quatre slept Trowa Barton, the silent intellect, the unofficial

older brother, but above all else, Trowa was the philosophical one. He

normally kept quiet, letting his senses take in everything they could

about a situation but he hardly ever spoke up about what he noticed. When

he did speak though, everyone listened with a noticeable kind of

adoration. If he took the time to say something, it was bound to be worth

the words spoken. He explained his way of communication simply "Too many

people today waste words where they aren't needed. The spoken language is

meant to be a sign of intelligence, not a source of constant noise." Not

to anyone's surprise, but that comment seemed to be directed at Duo most

of the time. But underneath that quiet serious exterior, Trowa was a

master at the art of deceit; he had wormed his way into OZ's trust and

found out the basis to their systems. To that day, they still had no clue

who their lost fighter was.

The remaining member of the brotherhood lay sprawled on the ground,

several yards from where the rest of the group was sleeping. Heero Yuy

was the ultimate source of independence and secrecy. He had let himself

get closer to the other four in the past years but like Wufei, Heero was a

strong believer in the power of a person as a whole and the doubt of the

entire people's society. Heero's past was a mystery as were his thoughts.

His deep blue eyes always had a melancholy gaze about them and his mouth

rarely let a smile crack through. Oddly enough, though, he was rarely

seen frowning either. He was the strong silent type, the steel backbone,

the iron heart, yet deep inside, he was the only one content with his life.

Lastly, you had Duo, the long-haired chatterbox, the playful comedian out

of the five and the one who was determined to live his life to the fullest

he could. He was all for the protection of the innocent and safety of the

universe, but only if there were battles involved. His passion on the

battlefield had earned him the title of the angle of death, a name he was

proud to bear. The violet-eyed 17-year-old was also an accomplished

gymnast and was quite a sight for any eye to witness in person, the long

brown braid flying out from behind him, somehow not normally taking away

from his boyish good looks or adding any unwanted femininity. 

His eyes once again ventured up through the canopy of tree branches

seeking out the moon that should have been there but wasn't. The Lunar

colony or L-12 as OZ had renamed it, had been destroyed days earlier. If

there were any survivors there, they needed to be taken to the earth and

put in camps set up just for that purpose. 

The numbering of the colonies was just another one of the ways OZ was

using psychology against the trusting souls they had manipulated into

their hands. Each colony had been renamed or, he thought grimly,

renumbered, assigned a color and lost all senses of individuality. The

idea of aging had been lost along the lines as well, once a girl reached

the age of 16, she received a diamond shaped pendent in her home colonies

color that represented her coming of age. Time after that was just an

unending cycle that wasn't necessary in the new unified society. Duo

sighed again and rubbed the brick red, diamond tattoo that had been

branded on him over the period of his last capture. Men had their own

methods of time. The male species was supposed to be able to withstand

pain but the smile fainted from him face when he remembered what happened

with Quatre when he was forced into the chair. No one knew the boy was

terrified of needles and he had fainted the minute he saw it being pulled

out. The other men in the room had laughed at him but all his comrades

could do was sympathize instead of giving the much needed aid. He woke up

a few hours after the procedure and found himself marked with a teal blue

diamond. Trowa had a forest green one while Wufei's was black. Heero was

the only one out of the four who managed to get off without the mark, he

had no known home or history anyone could check. As far as Duo was

concerned, Heero was an illusion of innocence and memories lost to the

world by every passing moment.

He had just settled back down onto his blanket to try to get some more

sleep when the blinding lights were switched on overhead "Damn artificial

sunlight." He muttered, putting on his sunglasses

Heero rose just as quickly "If we're going to do this, then let's get it

over with." He said in his normal monotone voice.

Wufei hopped down from the branch, his blanket in hand and after

stretching for a moment, began to pack up his share of the supplies from

the night before. Quatre sat up slowly and after rubbing the remaining

sleep out of his eyes, smiled almost as brightly as the glaring lights

overhead "Morning everyone." He said, folding up his blanket neatly and

packing it in his bag.

Wufei groaned "Do you always have to be this cheerful every morning?" He

glanced over at the still sleeping Trowa "Are you going to wake him up or

do I have to do it?" He smiled wickedly.

Quatre knelt down and shook the older boy's shoulder "Trowa, we need to

get going." He said, rather softly but it was enough to get the other boy

to open his eyes " You need to get up."

Trowa shook the leaves out of his hair and began to pack up the same way

he did everything else, quietly and efficiently. "Do you think there are

going to be any survivors left on that base?" He asked after a moment of

silence

Heero shrugged "I seriously doubt it." He placed everything in his bag

"It's been too long. If we could have made it there the day after it had

happened, we probably could have found someone. Now they're all probably

lying around dying from radiation or dehydration."

"It's too bad we don't have our Gundams anymore." Wufei remarked, poking

at the fire with the end of a stick. "We could have been there, taken

them back to the Earth and then gone back into space where we could be

kicking some major ass in the time it's taken us to get this far."

"If you feel that way, we could just give this mission up altogether."

Heero replied "It doesn't matter to me one way or another."

"It doesn't seem right." Duo said angrily "First they ask for our help,

then they want us dead and are willing to do anything for that. Now

they're begging for us to help them again, this is all fucked up if you

ask me."

"I didn't." Heero replied, giving him a deadly glare "We need to make a

purpose for ourselves or else they'll turn against us again and then we

won't have any justifiable reason to attack Treize again."

"Do you want the dead to have given their lives up in vain?" Quatre

asked softly "Think of Father Maxwell and my father. Think of Wufei's

entire colony, even if they didn't believe in our actions, they believed

in our purpose. All everyone wants right now is peace. Heero," he rose

his head momentarily "to look at the blonde boy "think of Relena. Even

she had to ive up and what is she now? A former ideal of pacifism is

reduced to a refugee from persecution."

Heero kept his gaze hard "I do what I have to do to stay alive." He

replied cooly

"Well, that's it then." Wufei put a stop to their discussion "Let's just get moving and see what happens."

They all nodded, and after eating a fast breakfast and picking everyone

else up, they climbed back into the space shuttle and took off for the remains of

the colony.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

  
  


The jet landed on a large, flat piece of concrete, lying among other piles of ruble. "Just go out, look around and try to get back here before dark. I want to get out of here as soon as possible so we can go and check the progress on our Gundams."

Duo looked around him at the scattered debris "Who's going to go what way?" He asked "We'd get further if we split up, this colony is relatively large in comparison to the others."

Heero sighed again, "I'll go that way, you go the that way. Trowa, you head south, Wufei, you can try west. Quatre, you come with me, we've got the most ground to cover anyways."

"Yes drill sergeant." Wufei gave him a mock salute and walked off. Duo and Trowa also departed heading their separate ways. Heero watched them all walk off before turning to Quatre and raising and eyebrow at him "Are you ready?" He asked

Quatre nodded "Heero, why did you want me to go with you instead of with Trowa or Duo?"

Heero wouldn't meet his curious gaze "You have a habit of going into hysterics when you meet death face to face. I'm going to make sure that you don't stop searching after the first dead body. You're going to see more today then you have on every other mission we've been on combined. This was the most populated colony by far and the numbers of the dead are bound to be overwhelming. If' OZ wanted to cure the overpopulation problem, they knew right where to begin." He walked over to a partly demolished apartment building "We might as well start in here." He muttered, walking inside. 

Quatre's eyes widened at the moment he saw the bodies thrown all over the place. It was as if the human life held no more value then a pair of discarded socks. "It's so cold in here." He murmured "Everything is just so cold in here. It's so quiet."

Heero walked behind him, keeping an eye out for any signs of life, but mostly watching over the younger boy. It was close to 80 degrees out, the bombing had left behind fires that threw soot and ash into the atmosphere, locking in the heat from the fires and the artificial lights that still kept the daylight and nighttime coming and going on the world of the dead. He watched Quatre kneel down by another lifeless figure, and as he touched the dead man's hand, he began shivering from the feeling only he could feel.

"Quatre, snap out of it." Heero said calmly, "It's okay, they can't feel anything now."

Quatre sat on the floor wavering back and forth on his heels "So cold." He whispered, teeth chattering "So very cold."

Heero helped him up, nothing the icy feel of his skin. Slowly, he took him outside into the warm light and stood over him, waiting for him to return to the world that every other living soul was forced to live in.

After falling to the ground after Heero let him drop, Quatre's breathing remained heavy but the color was going back into his pale flesh and his skin wasn't quite as cold as it had been.

"Are you okay?" Heero asked him

Quatre shook his head "I just can't bring myself to handle it. Death just leaves behind emptyness and it's so cold and dark without human life to put some color into it. Everytime this happens, I just see the darkness and it holds onto me and won't let me go." He looked up at Heero, his eyes sorrowful "I'm sorry, I just don't know how to stop this."

"Let's just keep moving." Heero said "You'll get use to it after awhile. It just takes some time."

...

  
  


Trowa nudged aside anther dead body, searching for any sign of life. But, there wasn't any, he could feel it. He walked out of the small home and wandered down the street. Death, it was so dark, so final. Death had to be avenged though, he had found that out from experience, without it, Death had no purpose and it would just come again to take the lives of more innocents. Thousands of people had died at the hands of a powerful government and unless the "others" who were behind that system were killed in the same way, those thousands of voices would remain calling out to the world of the physically living. He looked down the road at the remaining home and for a moment debated just leaving it and going back to the jet, as it was now, he was going to be late enough. Besides, it didn't seem like anything was different there then it was every other place he had been in before that. He turned to look back at the direction the jet was in and then looked forwards again, with a sigh, he began walking towards the building.

The door lay splintered on the ground, broken into three jagged pieces. He pushed aside a slab of concrete and let his eyes adjust to the musty darkness. It was another dead family. There was the father, blood surrounding him and his head buried under fallen slabs of rock and other debris. Two children, both young boys, were sprawled out on the floor, one under the now shattered coach, the other half buried under a fallen cabinet.

He looked around again, where was the mother? OZ had set a strict curfew on when all families should be in their homes. Had she abandoned her own flesh and blood to save her own life? Death could make people go crazy. He had seen it before, when someone saw the light of hope in front of them, they would try to overcome any obstacle to get to that glimmer of true light. "Please help me." He heard a soft feminine voice "Sir, I need your help."

"Where are you?" Trowa asked, trying to peer through the darkness

He felt a tug on his pants "I'm right here." She whispered again.

He knelt down beside her, took out his canteen and offered her some water, she sipped a little but then used her little bit of life to move into the light.

Her silvery-white hair shimmered and her eyes were the color of pure gold. Her dress was torn and there was blood smeared on her peaches-and-cream complexion. He could see that she was young, too young to have children the age hers were. It was all because of the loss of age and time. She couldn't be much more then twenty at the very most. She had probably been married off at sixteen and had her children soon after marriage. Those boys looked to be about three or four years old and the man, judging from the beginnings of the wrinkles around his eyes and the flecks of gray through his brown hair, he had to have been in his early forties. But through all of that, he also noticed that life was leaving her body by every passing second. She had lost too much blood to last until he could get her to a hospital. "Lady, I'm afraid you're dying." He told her, figuring that she would rather hear the truth and say what she wanted to before she died.

"I know that." She replied in her soft voice "I just want you to do one thing for me. I want you to find my baby and save her, she's such an extraordinary child."

"Where is your baby?" He asked, trying to help her through the most difficult moments in any mortal's life. 

"She's with her grandparents, they're on the other side of the colony, further away from the explosions, I thought she would be safer there." She gestured weekly towards the north. "Her name is Satunia Jane. Just please help her, I just know that she is alive. If she was gone, I wouldn't still be here." She reached up and grasped his hand, "Will you move my inside next to my husband after I'm gone?" She asked, Trowa nodded and smiled at her. She smiled back at her and then took one last gasp before the life left her body, all at once.

Trowa moved her body in where she had asked him to put it before leaving the house. He didn't have the time to look for a baby right now, there were areas left that he still needed to look through. If that one woman was able to make it as long as she did, then there had to be others. He glanced back to where the family lay together at the very end "I'm sorry but I just don't have the time right now. If I can, I'll go looking later but trying to find that child would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. There are just too many people here to find the body. I'll try to go looking later though, if it will bring you some peace." There was no reply of coarse, just the empty silence that the shadow of death had left behind.

...

Heero and Quatre exited another house and walked down to the next. Quatre watched Heero carefully, he didn't seem to hold any compassion for the deceased. He didn't seem to care about anything; that was why everyone called him the perfect soldier. He did every mission he was given in silence, speaking only when it was absolutely necessary. His every movement was mechanical, not even seeming to be human. "Heero, don't you care?" He cried out after another moment lost in his thoughts "Doesn't this do anything to you at all?"

Heero stopped and turned around "Quatre, if I let everything get to me, the way it gets you, then all I would do is cause myself to become weak, unable to avenge these people and destroy the people behind these pointless actions. We were all chosen for a reason, to bring every part of human life into our battles. I'm the monotone follower, Duo brings in the happiness and laughter, Trowa is thoughtfulness, Wufei is hate, hurt, and anger rolled together, and you're the sentimental sensitivity. I'm not allowed to feel, that's your job, you keep the rest of us in check on our feelings although each one of us has to block out certain ones, sadly enough, for you, that feeling happens to be pain." He turned again and walked again "This might be the first colony they've managed to wipe out completely."

"Just hold on to some hope." Quatre urged "There has to be someone."

"See what I mean." Heero put in "You're idealistic and it will destroy you in the end. Stop lying to yourself right now, that's the worst thing you could do to yourself in these times."

Quatre fell silent as they approached the door but then spoke up once again "It's getting warmer now." He remarked

Heero just looked at him, the temperature hadn't changed at all. "It's all in your head." He replied "Nothing is changing around here."

"But it is." Quatre protested "I can feel it."

Heero sighed and kept walking, the house, unlike most of the others, was still standing. He kicked down the door and let the light stream into the dim room. Quatre wiped the sweat from his brow and followed him inside. The first floor had three rooms, a room with a coach, chair, and a table. On the other end, there was a brick fireplace with some pictures lying on the floor in front of it. Quatre picked one up and took off the pieces of broken glass. It was a photo of two elderly people, the man standing behind the woman, trying to look strong but his eyes betrayed his love for the woman who sat before him. Quatre smiled and set the frame back on the fireplace and picked up another. This one was a picture of a large extended family, the same two elderly people were sitting in the center, but this time, other people gathered around them. There was a very young woman and a middle-aged man standing behind them with a tiny baby in the woman's arms. On either side of them, stood two young boys, they didn't seem to be older then three. Quatre touched the woman's face and moved the glass away from her. She truly was beautiful to him. As the moments passed and he kept gazing at her, he slowly felt something in him fade away and he realized that she was gone. The carrier of death had stolen the angel away from him; the light that had been contained within the photo no longer was there, the picture went dark, just like all the others. "She left me." He heard himself whisper "Just like my mother did."

Heero peered into the three rooms on the second floor, there were two bedrooms, one belonging to an older couple, probably the same ones in the photos. The other seemed like it had been empty for some time. There was a crib set up in a corner and a few pictures lying on the floor but there was a layer of dust covering everything. He swiped his index finger through it once and looked at it more closely. He was right, the dust was from a lack of use, not from crumbling rocks and cement. He turned and walked back downstairs where Quatre was still staring at the same photo he had been looking at when Heero had gone upstairs. "Are you done down here?" He asked softly, making Quatre jump and turn around quickly. 

"There really aren't any survivors, are there?" He asked, tears in his eyes

Heero shrugged "I told you I highly doubted it." He walked towards a set of stairs at the end of the hallway "Let's check down in the basement, if they were smart, they would have stayed in there."

He took a candle from a drawer and lit it before descending into the depth. After a moment and another longing look at the young woman in the photograph, Quatre rushed after him. Under the stairs, huddled in a corner, was the elderly couple they had seen in photos, their eyes opened for eternity. Heero moved the lids down and stepped back "Let's go." He said "There isn't anyone here we can save." He began to walk towards the stairs again but Quatre paused 

"Did you hear that?" He asked, looking around him at the shadows

"Quatre, you're letting your mind play tricks on you again." Heero answered, pausing but not stopping completely.

Quatre grabbed the candle from him and began to walk around "No, I'm positive that I just heard something crying over here." Heero stood on the bottom step for another moment before following the younger boy. Remarkably enough, he too began to hear a soft wailing as they moved closer and closer to the rock wood box. Quatre set the candle down on the floor and reached into the dark area between the box and the wall. 

Heero peered over his shoulder, his curiosity getting the best of him "What is it?" He asked

Quatre brought something out from the darkness. "It's a baby!" He replied, the candlelight dancing in his sapphire blue eyes "and it's alive!"

The child, after looking at the two of them curiously, scrunched up it's nose and began to wail again, more loudly then before. "Do something to shut it up." Heero commanded, covering his ears

Quatre cuddled it up to his chest and bounced it a little. Eventually the baby's cries subsided and died out completely. "Is it a boy or a girl?" Heero asked

Quatre checked quickly "Girl." He replied smiling broadly "Isn't she cute?"

Heero shrugged "Just leave her here. If this is our sole survivor, this race is better off dead. We can't raise a baby and we don't know anyone who could for us." Quatre opened his mouth to protest but Heero cut him off "Don't try to put up a fight. You're the baby of your family and the rest of us were the only children in ours. No one has any of the experience necessary to raise a baby." He sighed and turned away "Just leave her where we found her and forget about it."

"No." Quatre said standing up, still holding her "I'll take care of her."

"What are you going to do when Sandrock is repaired?" Heero asked "You can't take a baby in a Gundam."

"Then it looks like I'm going to have to give up fighting." Quatre replied "It's a sacrifice I'll have to make."

"Why is it so important that this one kid lives?" Heero demanded "I just don't get it."

Quatre looked down at her and smiled softly again "I just feel something special about her. There is something about her that is rather strange but it's not in an evil way and I feel the need to protect that energy."

"I still say you leave her here." Heero tried to persuade him one last time

Quatre looked him in the eye and took a deep breath "Heero, for once in my life, I don't give a damn about what you think."

His eyes widened "I think that's the first time I ever heard you cuss." He noticed and then sighed "Keep it if you want to then. I don't care, it's your problem now." He left the candle with the boy and his new adopted daughter.

Quatre hunted around for awhile until he discovered a box of bottles and cloth diapers. "At least you're set for a little while." He said to her. The baby now had her eyes closed and was sleeping soundly in his arms. He stood up after setting her in the box, surrounded by the extra diapers for some padding. "Now I can understand why parent are so overprotective of their children." He spoke to the sleeping infant again "I don't exactly know why I'm even doing this. I've never felt an intuition like that before. You must be one special little girl."

"Quatre." Heero called "Are you coming or not?"

He began to walk towards the stairs, picking up various pieces of baby supplies every few steps or so. 

When he reached the stairs, he hesitated and looked back at the older couple "Please forgive me." He whispered before taking the woman's cream colored pendent from around her neck "I know this is disrespecting you but she's going to know as much about her origin as I can offer her."

He picked up the box again and walked up the stairs. Heero was standing in the doorway holding a small quilt in his arms. He handed it to Quatre without changing expression "That's all the help I'm going to be giving her." He said "Don't ask me for anything else." He turned and walked away, leaving Quatre to follow.

Quatre began the walk back to the shuttle, cooing to the still sleeping baby as they walked. "You know, I'm really glad I found you." Quatre spoke to her softly "I doubt that with the life I've lived that I'll ever be able to settle down, get married, and have children of my own. I'm just glad that I'm going to be able to raise a baby, even if you aren't mine by blood."

"Stop talking to it as if it can understand you." Heero said stopping and looking back "It's not like it can talk back or anything."

The baby opened her eyes and began to fuss. Her eyes searched around and her tiny mouth moved looking for something to suck on, searching for food.

Quatre took ahold of the string he had tied to the box and after taking out a bottle and the baby, slung it over his shoulder and paused long enough to feed her.

She drained the milk from the bottle rather quickly, gave a soft burp and began to gurgle happily, grabbing one of Quatre's fingers and waving it around wildly while blowing spit bubbles and staring wide eyed at all of her surroundings. It was official, Quatre was hooked on the light-eyed little child.

It was dusk by the time he made it back. Heero was already there, sitting under the shuttle with a bunch of tools by his side. Duo and Wufei were sitting on one of the wings and by the looks on their faces, it was obvious they hadn't had any luck whatsoever. "Hey Quatre!" Duo called when he saw him approaching "Whatcha got in the box?"

"It's a baby." He called back 

"Boy or girl?" Wufei asked, squinting over at them, as if he could actually see from the distance.

"She's a girl." Quatre replied for the second time that day

Wufei sighed disappointedly "the world doesn't need any more woman." 

Quatre waited until he was sitting up with them before taking her out of the box and rocking her in his arms again. "She's kind of cute!" Duo exclaimed, holding out a finger for her to grab.

Wufei didn't say anything else for a moment and then asked "What's her name?"

"I've been trying to think of one." Quatre said "I've never been really good with that kind of thing though. For a little while I was thinking about naming her after my mother but I didn't feel that was appropriate being that there is no blood connection between the two of them. All the other names I've thought up don't seem to fit her at all and they all sound stupid to me. I was hoping that you guys would be able to help me out a little on this one."

Duo snapped his fingers "I know! Call her Bubba." He grinned as she stuck his finger in her mouth "I've always dreamed of having a kid named Bubba."

"That really figures." Heero said from under the plane "You're not stable enough to come up with anything more practical."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Duo demanded, taking his finger away from the baby and moving to where he could look at the Japanese pilot.

Heero stood up and dusted off his hands "Exactly what I said, you aren't ready for children, you're a wild person yourself and a baby that age needs stability which you aren't capable of offering right now."

"Oh." Duo sighed and moved back, giving the girl his finger again.

"I don't think so anyways." Quatre put in quickly "She doesn't really look or act like a Bubba from what I've seen."

"Call her Nataku….after my deceased wife." Wufei suggested monotone "It's a sensible name and hopefully she'll learn her place in society faster then the first Nataku did."

"No!" The two of them exclaimed in unison "Let her soul rest in peace." Quatre tried to persuade him "Don't try to resurrect her now." Wufei sighed, but let the idea fall.

They sat thinking for a few more minutes before Duo came up with his next brilliant idea "Call her Duo Jr." He exclaimed, jumping up and snapping his fingers "After the God of Death and the greatest gundam pilot that ever lived."

"Um, Duo." Quatre put in "If you've forgotten already, she's a baby girl. You're a guy, it doesn't seem to fit right."

"So what?" Duo asked shrugging "Call her Duet." He leaned against the wall of the shuttle with a satisfied look on his face

"I don't think so." Quatre said, trying to be nice "She doesn't look a thing like you and I don't like the idea of naming her after anyone else, dead or alive. I want her name to be unique and fit her as an individual."

"Oh well." Duo replied "It's her loss."

"Why don't you call her Satan?" Heero commented "All she is going to be to us is a hindrance and a devil child."

Bubba/ Nataku/ Duo Jr./ Satan opened her eyes from her position in Quatre's arms at that last comment and began to sob loudly. "I don't think she appreciated that one." Duo remarked, shouting over the baby's wailing

Quatre bounced the baby in his arms and cooed to her softly "It's okay sweetie." He said softly, trying to sooth her "Everything is going to be okay."

"Let's call her Sherika!" Duo exclaimed, with his hands over his ears "That one fits her perfectly."

"Stupid woman child." Wufei muttered, mimicking Duo's action of covering his ears "You're just as bad as the rest of them."

"Just let her be." Quatre said, continuing the rocking motion "She's just upset. Wouldn't you be if you were yanked out of the only life you knew, away from the only people you knew, and put into a new life where even if you were this young, you knew it was going to be completely different from the last life?" He pulled out a pacifier out of the box and stuck it in her mouth. The baby's eyes widened again but she stopped crying and started to suck.

"Who did you find?" Trowa asked walking up from a distance

"A pathetic female child." Wufei commented "All she does is cry."

"You have any names you like?" Duo asked "We're kind of stuck on what to call her."

Trowa flipped over, not bothering to take the extra time to walk, and looked down at the baby, her hair gleamed silver in the firelight. "Her name is Satunia Jane. Just please help her, I just know that she's alive. If she was gone, I wouldn't still be here." The silver haired woman's words echoed in his head "Her name is Satunia Jane." Trowa said "Just trust me. She's an orphan, her mother died like the rest of the family after she asked me to find her. It looks like you guys beet me to her though."

The baby opened up her brownish-gold eyes and cooed, waving her arms around in the air. The fire crackled and in a split second, the lights went out.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

(Five months later)

  
  


Heero stood in a doorway of their base, watching Trowa, Quatre, and Duo fawn over the baby who had just spoken her first word hours earlier. Wufei was sitting in a chair, slightly away from the small group but still close enough to pay attention to what was going on. He wasn't lavishing attention on the girl but he was definitely not hiding his interest in her either. 

The doorway from across the room slid open and the two Gundam scientists walked into the room. There was the now almost ancient Dr. J and his son, Dr. R. With the assistance of his cane, Dr. J moved himself over to a chair and sat down. He set a computer chip on the table in plain view of all the pilots. He waited until they were all listening to him before stating what he wanted to say in a slow gravely tone of voice "We have finally managed to produce a system, superior to that of the ZERO system." He paused long enough to make eye contact with all five of the pilots "With this new unique system, your travel time has been cut in half and the power behind all of your attacks has been increased by 150%."

"Not like it will make any difference with Sandrock." Wufei spoke up from where he was floating peacefully in a corner "Now that Quatre has given up fighting for that woman-child."

The old man shot the boy a deadly stare "Why?" He asked simply "You have the training to be a soldier, not to be a father."

"I need to protect her and to be with her." Quatre tried to explain "I just feel the need to raise her on my own."

"What about bringing a woman into take care of her for you?" Professor S suggested "It won't be hard to find one."

"I don't want to leave her with a complete stranger." Quatre responded, looking at the man as if he was crazy, just for suggesting it.

"What about Relena?" Dr. J asked"It's a decent trade, you get a nanny for the baby and she gets a safe place to hide out until things die down again."

"No." Heero objected quickly "She's fine where she is right now. I made sure of it. We don't need to move her anywhere else."

"It wouldn't be right asking her to live as a baby-sitter." Trowa added "Relena was born a princess, raised as the only daughter of the vice-foreign minister, then turned into a queen and then becoming the vice foreign minister and eventually having to escape and live in hiding for this war to end. Don't degrade her anymore then she already is by asking her to be a liveas a sitter. That woman was raised to promote peace across the universe, not to live her life doing child care."

Duo nodded "But then, who could we find who would want to do it? It's not like wars spawn babysitters."

"Guys, I'm going to give up fighting anyways, at least for now, and only as much as I can without hurting the rest of you, but it's not just because of her. This isn't the way I want to live my entire life. I want to be able to help people, not just get involved in something that is going to hurt them." 

"What are you trying to say?" Duo asked, his eyes widening, as if it wasn't clear enough yet.

"I'm saying that you might want to start looking for a pilot with the capability to pilot Sandrock." Quatre said, his voice shaking a little, even though he tried to sound as firm as he could.

"If you want to help the people, then what about the survivors that need rescuing?" Wufei asked sarcastically "You might be able to find her a little brother lying in the dirt or something."

"I can't take her with me." Quatre protested "What do you expect me to do? Install a crib inside of Sandrock's cockpit?"

"But you can leave her with us for the time being." Professor S put in "We can keep an eye on her and provide the basic needs and care that babies her age demand. All you have to do is move her playpen into our lab while you're gone. It isn't the best solution but it would solve your problem for a little while. We're just beginning to develop another new Gundam and we aren't doing any heavy construction as of right now."

"Speaking of survivors." Dr. J switched on the large monitor on the opposite side of the room "From the commotion in the streets, another colony was just destroyed. You're going to have to go looking for some more people."

After a moment of fuzz, the silhouette of Treize Kushranada, the chief representative of OZ appeared on the screen, his face empty of emotion as usual "Colony I-13 is destroyed. I repeat one last time, colony I-13 has been wiped out of the universe. All citizens are reported dead." He gazed out at the universe for a few other seconds to let his news sink in before the screen faded away.

"He must mean that there are no known survivors." Duo said, breaking the silence "He keeps saying that there are no living citizens and yet we keep coming up with a few. This one shouldn't be too different."

Heero glanced up at him "It's an ice colony." He commented "we've never been on one before so remember that."

"So, I'll bring a warm coat." Duo grinned and bounced out of the room to the bay where the Gundams were stored.

Quatre picked up Satunia and hugged her "I'll be back soon." He promised, setting her down in the crude wooden playpen that the pilots had constructed together.

Her bronze colored eyes stared back solemnly at him. "Da." She repeated the word she had uttered a few hours earlier "Dada."

He smiled, kissed her baby soft cheek and stroked the downy soft, silvery-white hair that she had, according to Trowa, inherited from her deceased blood mother.

"Are you coming?" Heero asked from the door, looking back at him before heading out to the bay as well.

Quatre looked bak at her again but then forced himself to turn and walk out to Sandrock. He climbed into the Gundam and moments later, the five of them took off. With the fastest form of transportation in existence, the time needed for the trip through space was under five hours. The five pilots landed their Gundams and stepped out into the windy, cool atmosphere. "This is definitely unusual." Wufei commented, looking around him "Normally the colonies are hot after the bombings because of the fires and damaged atmospheres."

"Didn't you guys pay any attention at those astronomy classes?" Duo asked "Each colony was formed from the broken parts of the planets that exploded. We just happen to be standing on what used to be part of Mars's icecaps." He stopped and got a smug smile on his face "There, told you I wasn't completely incompetent Wuffie!" He smiled sickening sweet over at the Chinese pilot.

"Since when did you ever study?" Heero asked "Your fanclubs never gave you the chance."

"I was going to get kicked off the basketball team if I failed any other course so I decided to do some serious booking." Duo's smile turned rather sheepish

"And you actually remember something from all that cramming?" Quatre teased

Duo shrugged "I'm not a complete air head, come on! Give me some credit here, I am the God of Death after all. Doesn't that amount to anything?"

"Duo, let's keep our minds on the mission." Trowa cut in "We're all unfamiliar with this colony so it might be better if we stay together for awhile until we get the feel of it."

"Whatever." Wufei muttered "Which way?"

"Let's start here." Trowa suggested "From here we can move east. When we get back here, then we can switch directions and start going north until we've walked the way around and end up here again."

"Whatever." Heero said, starting out with a long stride. Trowa, Quatre, Duo, and Wufei were right behind him, keeping their eyes peered for anything out of the ordinary.

"This is one of the smaller colonies, isn't it?" Quatre asked, after a few miles were behind them and they had yet to find a single house.

"Population of less then 3,500." Duo quoted from a textbook

Heero stopped on the edge of a cliff and looked down "Looks like they all were in the same spot." He said monotone "Let's go down, count them, and see if any of them are even alive."

They walked down the embankment and stopped at the edge of the pile. It truly was a horrifying sight. The bodies of the colony civilians were scattered among the ground, they must have been ordered to stand there and wait for the end because even the simple minds of people had the instinct to fend for themselves when it came to life and death. Heero began to walk around, checking for a heartbeat on any of them.

Quatre stood at the edge of the population, hugging himself "So cold." He said, his teeth chattering "It's so cold. It's like my body is turning to ice."

"Quatre, stop letting it get to you and you'll be able to stop all of this." Heero looked back at him "You're letting Death play with your mind again."

Duo stopped suddenly as well "It's not just him." He felt an ice chill enter his body and take over all of him, from head to toe. "I can feel it too. Something isn't right here, Heero." He seemed to be frozen in place and his lips were turning an eery purple-blue.

"He's right Heero." Trowa added, rubbing his arms, trying to warm them up "I'm feeling colder too. Something is really wrong here."

"I agree." Wufei added, "We have to get out of here and figure out what we need to do."

Heero ignored them for the time being, still walking around and checking people for any sign of life before he too began to feel a little chill. Stopping, he found that he really was cold, colder then he had ever been in his life. He did a second check on his body only to find that he was shivering and could barely move anything anymore. "This can't be happening." He mumbled, breathing into his hands, trying to warm up so he could continue on with the mission "The perfect soldier can't feel anything. I shouldn't be affected like this. I've got to concentrate, it must be an illusion because a weather change like this is impossible, if anything, it should be getting hotter, not colder." He shook his head and after a little while, as his mind cleared, the cold sensations left his body, leaving him free to move around.

Heero walked over to his nearly dead comrades and began to shake them roughly "This is all an illusion." He yelled at them "Something is just playing with your minds. You have to snap out of it."

He slapped Trowa and Quatre, yanked on Wufei's ponytail and punched Duo in the stomach. Just as he had hoped, the physical pain they felt was enough for them to push away the cold feeling and start moving and breathing more easily. Slowly, the four other boys became more animated and eventually were back to normal. "What was that?" Trowa asked "It must be some super-human force because there is no way any normal mortal could have done that."

"Look!" Wufei exclaimed, pointing up at the cliff that they had come down from "Who are you?" He called up to the figure standing on the edge, looking down at them.

Duo shielded his eyes from the sun and gazed up where Wufei was pointing. Standing up there was a blue clad figure who seemed to be glaring down at them. After a moment, they could see the persons body become glazed over with a thin film of ice. Layer upon layer crystalized upon the person until all that was left was a giant block of ice. Duo's eyes widened as some invisible force seemed to force the block over the edge and made it cut through the air until it shattered on the ground. "What the fuck?" Duo muttered, walking over to the ice slivers scattered around.

"Duo, watch it." Heero warned "You were right, something strange is going on here. Take a closer look at that ice."

Duo stopped in his tracks and watched in amazement as the ice slivers moved back together and bonded and melted into a icy cast of a human body. As they watched, flesh and blood began to run through the inside of the ice sculpture.

"What kind of creature is that?" Wufei shouted, backing up a step and putting himself into a warriors stance, ready for battle.

The ice broke away from the body that had formed inside of it and fell to the ground as a discarded cocoon. Ice blue eyes glared coldly at them. Duo's eyes widened even more "It's a woman." He whispered to himself in shock

She was several inches shorter then he was, with wavy blonde hair that fell about an inch below her shoulders. It was held away from her face with a practical navy blue headband. She was dressed like an elegant warrior, a blue belly-shirt with thin, navy blue straps. Her skirt was of a much thinner filmy material in a lighter shade of blue that fell below her knees. Her legs were in pale blue shimmering tights that ended in a pair of navy blue toe-shoes. A sky blue pendent hung from a black choker, the only jewelry she worse. "What are you doing here?" She demanded "Well? What do you want from me? Don't just sit there and stare. Answer me before you get me more angry then what I already am." Her sharp voice cut into Duo's chest like a knife.

"Wow." Duo breathed, finally taking in every part of her, unable to say anything else.

She glared at him angrily "What business do you have here?" As you can already see for yourself, everyone else is dead. What difference should it make to you whether I live or die. Besides," a faint smirk appeared on her face, "I highly doubt any of you could kill me anyways. Those other soldiers though they could after I escaped from the mass but they found out the hard way that I'm not as easy as I look."

Heero sighed "We're not here to hurt you, we just need to get you out of here. Come on." She focused her glare on him "I'm staying right here Spandex-boy." She told him "This is my home and I'm not leaving it without a fight. Trust me, you might as well just go back to where you came from because it's going to be one fight that you're never going to win. Like I said before, I don't lose."

"And why would that be?" Wufei asked

"Would you like a demonstration?" She asked him sweetly, not smiling but smirking still

Duo grinned at her "Give it your best shot." He replied coyly "I didn't get the name of the God of Death for nothing."

The woman took a knife out of a leather bag that was tied at her waist and after running her index finger over the blade, flipped it at him. The tip of the blade caught that material of his shirt, right at the shoulder. Duo was so surprised that the little bit of force the knife had made him topple over to the ground, with the knife pinning him to the ground.

"DUO!" Quatre yelled as the woman flipped her next knife, pinning his other should to the ground. The next four went on either side of his stomach and pinning down both knees. She held up the last one, letting the silver blade gleam in the light. "Looks like I win." She laughed shortly "But I have one left and it wouldn't be fair to leave it out." The smile faded from her face just as quickly as it had come "Let's let my friends meet yours." The four boys in the back stepped backwards but it wasn't necessary. Instead of throwing it at them, she flipped it at Duo again, this time catching the loose material in between his thighs. Duo screamed and turned pale.

The woman smirked at them again "For a group of supposedly strong and honorable men, you all disgust me. Just leave and don't ever come back here if you value your lives. Next time I'm not going to aim for your clothing." She turned and began to walk off, still leaving Duo pinned to the ground.

Trowa seized the moment and began to run, almost soundlessly after her for a little ways before springing into the air, doing a twist and a flip before landing in front of her.

She glared and swung out at him with one fist but he grabbed it easily. "I just thought you'd like to know that my sister is better with knives then you could ever hope to be." He said calmly, twisting her arm around and holding it behind her back.

Her eyes flamed in anger and she made the mistake of trying to hit him with her other free arm that he ended up snagging and holding behind her back with the first. "She's more talented when it comes to the hand to hand combat too." He added, holding her firmly. She kept struggling and eventually tried to kick him but he just caught her leg firmly in between his. "Look, you're running out of body parts so if I was you, I'd stop trying to fight. We're going to take you to the earth with the rest of the refugees that we've been able to save so far. You'll be able to start a new life there."

"I told you." She hissed "I don't feel like leaving my home. I belong here, not there."

"You'll have to learn to belong then." Trowa replied "Heero, come over here and make sure there aren't any more concealed weapons on her before we have to take her into the Gundams."

Heero walked over, leaving Quatre and Wufei to free Duo from the knives. He began to move his hands up and down her body quickly and efficiently. She glared in horror at him, even though there wasn't any feeling in his touch whatsoever, no man was ever going to touch her like that and get away with it. After a moment of steadying herself, she brought her remaining knee up into Heero face and then landed on it again. She glared, satisfied for a moment until he stood up and looked at her.

There was blood steaming from his nose and lower lip but that was nothing in comparison to the anger boiling in his eyes. Quickly, he reached over and grabbed her throat, holding her up so that she had to balance on her toes. "Listen to me now, if you want to live long enough to get to the Earth." He said slowly "I don't let anyone get away with anything and it doesn't matter if you're a woman or not. Try and pull any little stunt like that and I'll kill you without another thought about it. We're only here to rescue people like you, not to put up with your crap. We didn't come here to kill you, we aren't with the organization that did this to your home, if you want to know the truth, we're probably on their most wanted list. We're just trying to bring a little bit of the help we can provide back to the colonies who gave us our Gundams. You're going to come with us to the Earth, whether you want to or not, you're going to end up there for the time being. It might be a few days because of the raids on the airports but after that dies down, you'll be sent to the Sank Kingdom or to one of the other places we found were the safest. You might as well just get use to the idea and accept it because nothing you try and do is going to change this mission." He let go of the grasp he had on her throat and she fell to her knees, gasping for breath.

Quatre gathered up that last of the knives and walked over to where Trowa and Heero still had her. "Could you hand me that bag?" He asked Trowa. "Don't worry, I'll make sure you get these back." He responded when he saw the deadly look she was giving him.

Trowa tossed the bag over to him, where he dropped the knives into it before tying it to the belt loop on his pants. Wufei came over with Duo who was still a little bit shaky "Damn." He swore, looking at his clothes, "You owe me a new outfit." He told her

She tried to spit at him "I own nothing to those who are weaker then me." She spat out "I already gave you my charity by sparing your life."

He held his hands up in the air "I was just kidding, don't worry about it." He replied "It was a joke, you know, ha ha ha?"

"If you don't mind my asking," Trowa butted in before the conversation turned to violence again "What is your name?"

She looked like she wasn't going to answer him but then a quick glance over at Heero made her change her mind rather quickly "My name is Teardra Lee." She replied, holding her head high while trying to keep her balance on her remaining leg.

"I'm Trowa, Trowa Barton." He replied, his face almost empty of expression

"My name is Wufei Chang." Wufei nodded at her

"Duo Maxwell." 

"I think I had yours figured out." She replied pointedly

"Heero Yuy." Heero said shortly 

"Quatre Raberba Winner." Quatre held out his hand for her to shake, forgetting that Trowa had both of her hands behind her back. He dropped it and blushed a little

"No kidding." She raised an eyebrow "So you're the heir to the Winner family that has been missing for so long."

Quatre nodded "It's a long story but my father didn't want me going off to battle but since I was the only male child out of 30, he didn't want to disinherit me. Right now, my 29 sisters are managing everything for me so I don't really have to worry about it when I'm out on my missions."

"So let me get this straight." Teardra said "We have a mute gymnast. A guy who thinks he's Jackie Chan incarnate, a guy with a severe identity crisis that makes him think he's the Shinigami, a guy who keeps spandex a monopoly, and a spoiled heir to millions who thinks he's Martha Stewerts long lost granddaughter."

Wufei snickered a little "You talk really big but everyone here seems to be too preoccupied to remember one little detail here." He crossed his arms over his chest "Quatre, she might be able to be the answer to your problem, take her back to Peacemillion and use her as a baby-sitter for that kid. That way you'll know Satunia will be safe and you can keep fighting without worrying."

Teardra pulled away from Trowa's grasp and stood facing him. She held her hand up to the sky where it seemed to become surrounded by ice particles. After another moment, she directed the blue energy at Wufei and threw the ball of ice at him.

Wufei threw himself to the ground but the ice still cut his shoulder, leaving a wide wound that oozed out the crimson blood. 

"How did you do that?" Heero demanded

"I'm the ice princess." Teardra replied with a smug smile "There are six of us altogether, air, water, fire, earth, lightning, and then ice. Pretty neat, huh?"

"Hn." He looked at her suspiciously

Wufei however, hadn't learned his lesson quite yet, she had damaged his pride and he sure as hell wasn't getting away with hers fully intact. He glared over at her "You're a woman, learn your place in society and we'll all be better off. The men, woman, and his child." He gestured towards Quatre.

Her hand fell back down to her side "You have a baby?" She asked, gazing at him curiously this time

He blushed a little bit again "She's not really mine by blood. I found her at the lunar colony after it was destroyed and I decided after that I was going to raise her on my own."

"Sounds like you aren't the weakest one here after all." Teardra told Duo "Why would you give up fighting for a kid?" She looked disgusted "Are you a weakling or just plain stupid?"

"I do what my instincts tell me to do." Quatre replied softly "It's the only way I can remain human after all the battles I've fought in."

"That's pathetic." She shot back "you're obviously a trained soldier, not a father. I bet you don't know the first thing about raising a baby. Is it a boy or a girl."

"Girl." Wufei replied for him "Satunia Jane."

"A male child would have been a slightly better situation. Then at least he'd belong around male role models and he'd end up strong without any females to soften him up. But a female? She'll either turn out a whore or a warrior. Either way you look at it, she's not going to grow up normally."

"Look, I'm just going to do my best." Quatre held up his hands "She thinks I'm her father and I love her like I would my own flesh and blood."

"Love?" She spat out the word as if it was a bad taste in her mouth "Love?" You're a fighter, a soldier, if you were the perfect soldier, then you wouldn't have to put up with a petty emotion like that. You need to be the perfect soldier in times like these, otherwise you won't survive long enough to see her tenth birthday."

"Love isn't petty." Quatre argued softly "It's one of the only emotions that is true no matter how you look at it. It's a beautiful feeling and you can never find anything wrong with it. It's the most powerful emotions in a human's life. Love has created lives and yet it can destroy them. There is nothing else in this world that can take such a strong stand on completely different ends of the human mind."

She smirked again "With thoughts like that, you're already too weak to win. You are right giving up while you still can. You've already lost the war for yourself and if you keep fighting, you're going to lose it for everyone else as well."

Heero stepped into the middle of them "Continue this argument on the way back. I've got some work to do back on Peacemillion and we need to get going. Which one of us do you feel like riding back with?"

"You're giving me a choice?" She asked in amazement

"Hurry up and make your decision." Heero shot back "If you don't have a preference, then you can come back with me. At least that way I can make sure you stay out of trouble."

"Come on weakling." She moved next to Duo "Let's get out of here before your perfect soldier decides to kill me instead."

Duo pulled a set of handcuffs out and snapped them on her wrists "Let's get going beautiful." He replied smiling at her "We don't want to keep everyone waiting."

"Let me go!" She exclaimed, trying to break out of the cuffs to no avail. "Get these things off of me!"

"Come on babe." Duo laughed "We've got a long trip ahead of us. Hope you don't mind sitting on my lap because Deathscythe was only made with one seat."

She glared at him again "I think not." 

"I do." He replied, his amethyst eyes dancing, teasing her "Like I said, those suits were only made with one seat in them, just like all mobile suits."

"I'll sit on the floor then." She argued, trying to find a way out of it

Heero sighed "Think reasonably. It's impossible with the speed we're going to be traveling and the changing pressure because of the gravity. You have to be strapped in and the only way that would be possible would be for you to share a seat with someone."

"Let's just get going." Wufei butted in, after bandaging up his shoulder "Let Maxwell handle her from here on out. We'll figure out what to do with her once we're back on Peacemillion."

Duo grabbed the chain between the cuffs and led her off to Deathscythe. She protested every step of the way, and for the last few hundred yards, she stopped moving altogether and he had to drag her which wasn't too difficult, being that her shoes produced absolutely no friction. Once they were able to reach his Gundam, all the others had already taken off. Duo grabbed her around the waist and let the wire elevator pull the two of them up to the cockpit.

He sat down in the only seat and pulled her onto his lap where she squirmed around, trying to get comfortable. At least for her, it didn't take much, comfortable for her was anything that would make him uncomfortable. After a few more moment, she gave up and settle down on him, sighing in frustration.

"Are you okay now?" He asked, forcing a smile, she was beginning to get on his nerves.

"I'm fine." She replied through clenched teeth

Duo pushed some buttons and levers and his Gundam took off into space. It didn't take long before they found the others ahead of them. Teardra looked around at the different control panels and while Duo was busy trying to control Deathscythe, she amused herself pushing all the different buttons that she could get to with the handcuffs still intact. "What are you doing?" He asked her

She shrugged and hit a green button that sent a stream of lasers shoot into the empty space. "Just trying to figure this thing out."

She began to press a few others that affected the inside of the cockpit, first heating up the inside until it was almost too hot to breath and then flicking on the cool air that nearly froze Duo but made her quite happy. She made the seat recline all the way back and then shot it back up again so quicky that their heads collided because of the whip-lash. She found out where the buttons for all three screens were as well as finding the button that allowed them to communicate with the other pilots.

Another button directed a stream of fire towards the other four Gundam. Two out of the four flew out of the way quickly but the lasers hit Sandrock and Heero's Wing Zero. Quatre's face appeared on the right hand screen "Duo, what's going on in there?"

"Um, I'm not quite sure anymore." He replied, trying to restrain Teardra from the controls

"Try harder then." Heero replied sternly "I don't have the time to fix my suit tonight and we don't know when we'll need them again."

Teardra shifted again and started playing with a different set of controls. The first lever made the Gundam pull out the thermal energy scythe and then another made the scythe go flying through outer space."

"You little bitch!" Duo yelped, steering after it and retrieving his weapon. "Stop pushing everything in here before I chain your arms up to the ceiling.

She bent over and found a button she had missed seeing the first time. "SD?" She asked "I don't suppose this is the Self-detonation device." She shrugged "Oh well, if I've got to go, then I'm going to take you with me." She pushed it and then waited for the explosions "What the...?" She kept pushing it until she heard Duo's laugh 

"I just thought I should let you know that it never works." He told her "But this time I kind of made sure of it." He mimicked a pair of scissors with his fingers "Snip snip."

She mimicked the action "If you're not careful and if you tick me off one more time, I'm going to snip off something of yours that I'm sure you're going to want to hang onto for the future."

Duo winced and shifted slightly away from her "Just stop touching everything and sit still." He ordered weakly

"You're forgetting one little detail." She replied "I don't take orders from anyone and especially not from men who are weaker then me."

Duo sighed and sped up the movement, they couldn't get back soon enough.

. . .

"Quatre, that is possibly the stupidest idea you've ever come up with." Heero spoke to him from inside the Wing Zero "She wants to kill all of us and she had never even seen one of these suits before today."

"No, I'm serious." Quatre protested "She's a fighter just like us. Just test her on the Zero system once. I'm sure that she'll be able to do it. She's got that natural instinct that I'm lacking and you saw how on the mark she was."

Just then another image appeared on the center screen of the other four Gundams "Get away from me you pervert!"

"Look, I didn't mean it." Duo tried to calm her down"I'm sorry but it's not my fault."

"Then who are you going to blame it on?" She asked, still hitting him with the metal handcuffs

He shrugged, trying to avoid the blows "I don't know, hormones maybe?"

"You're such a pig!" She swung her arms out at him again, hitting him in the side of the head "I should have gone with Spandex-boy. He doesn't feel anything whatsoever and at least with him, I wouldn't have to worry about anything like this."

"Even Heero has hormones baby." He kept moving to avoid the blows "He's just better at me when it comes to hiding them."

"You're such a hiji!" She exclaimed 

"I told you, it's natural!" He protested "You give a guy a pretty girl who insists on squirming around in his lap no matter how much he tries to get her to stop, and I can guarantee that something will pop up eventually." He grinned "Sorry about the pun, that wasn't intentional!"

"You're disgusting." She exclaimed "Stay away from me."

"And how do you suggest that I do that?" He asked

"I don't know but find away before I go find the Winner guy, get my knives back and get rid of the problem permanently."

Heero hit the mute button for the screen and looked over at Quatre who had a smile on his face "We'll try her once." He agreed reluctantly "When we get back after she has had a chance to rest, I'll have Dr. J hook her into the system and we'll see what happens. I doubt she'll even agree to it though."

Quatre gazed over at the silent battle that he had muted "I think if you tell her it's a chance to get revenge for her home, she'll do it." He said softly "She's got a strong sense of justice and integrity. In a sense, she's just like Wufei."

"I said we'd try her." Heero said shortly "I never promised anything after that."

"Thanks." Quatre replied shortly

. . .

"What are you doing to me now?" Teardra asked early the next day after everyone had the chance to recuperate. "Is this some kind of 20th century torture device?"

Heero hooked the last few wires up to the head set that she was wearing. "Quatre wanted to try you out on the Zero system before we sent you to the Earth. He claims that he can see something in you, God know what, but I promised him and I don't back out of my promises." He handed her a small set of controls "This is a battle stimulus hooked into the system installed in the cockpits of our suits. This system has the tendency to play with the human mind so be forewarned about that."

"What happens if I pass or fail?" She asked, mainly to try and challenge him

"If you fail, you get sent to the Earth like we originally planned. If you end up passing, then it's the ultimate fail." He stepped out of the small room, leaving her to ponder his words for a little while but after a few moments, the flight stimulus appeared. She became intrigued with destroying the different machines that were programmed to fight against her.

Her eyes became glazed over with a glassy film and took on a while look "Must destroy." She muttered, shooting down everything that came close to her

After a few more moments, the stimulus ended and Heero came back into the room to unhook her. "I'll let you know what the results are once we get them analyzed." He told her "Just go and get yourself something to eat."

He sat down with Dr. J and looked at the computer print-out. "These results are astonishing for anyone." The doctor exclaimed "Compare them to the rest of the pilots and you're the only one who's higher and that's only because she killed her allies and her enemies."

"Are you sure it wasn't a glitch in the machine?" Heero asked, staring down at the pages of charts and data.

"This computer doesn't make mistakes." Dr. J said confidently "You said she had never even seen a mobile suit before? Well then I think that should tell us something. If Quatre is serious about retiring from the battle field, then I think we should snatch her up before she gets caught in these battles in any other way."

Heero shrugged and looked down "Don't you agree that she would be more useful here helping us as an ally then as a pawn on the Earth?" The Doctor pressed

"She could be dangerous." Heero replied "She could turn on us and with scores like that, destroy everyone but me and even then, she might be able to defeat me as well."

Dr. J stood up and with the help of his cane, began to walk towards the door. "Where are you going?" Heero asked

The doctor turned around slowly "Don't you want to know what the Zero system showed her? That could tell us a lot."

Heero returned the doctors gaze and after another long, silent moment, gave a slight nod "I'll get her." He said "You just stay right here."

He walked to the lounge area where everyone else was sitting around, eating and talking. He stood in the doorway silently, watching them all. Quatre was sitting in a chair, a smile across his face and Satunia in his lap. Trowa and Wufei were sitting on opposite ends of the large couch across from him. Duo was sitting on the floor, in the middle of everyone, just the way he liked it to be and Teardra was in the other chair, her back towards him. Eventually, she turned around to look at him "Do you have a problem or something?" She asked

He just glared at her for a moment "Come with me." He ordered

Teardra opened her mouth and looked like she was going to object but something about Heero's normal icy gaze made her think twice about it.

"What do you want?" She asked the two men after they had her sitting at the table

"We need to hear something from you that the computer can't tell us." Heero said 

"What did the Zero system show you?" Dr. J asked, getting right to the point "What kind of visions did you see?"

She looked at them both as if they were crazy "What are you talking about?" She asked them "I didn't see anything except the stimulus."

"Are you sure about that one?" Heero asked doubtfully "That system is designed to show the future while in battle."

Teardra look at him "I didn't see anything except those little dots." She repeated 

"One last question before you go." Dr. J said, looking at Heero who shrugged and then nodded "Will you stay and help us as an ally and an equal?"

Teardra shrugged "Sure, what the hell." She laughed "It doesn't look like I have much of a future anyways." 

Dr. J smiled and hobbled out of the room, leaving the two of them behind.

"What did you mean about passing being the ultimate fail?" She asked him "I don't get it."

"You will." Heero replied "Welcome to Hell, you just basically sold your soul to Satan."

She glared at him "I don't get any of you." She replied before getting up and leaving the room.

Heero sat at the table, the results of the tests staring up at him. This wasn't a mistake, she was a natural born fighter. He sighed and held his head, it had taken him years to get up to those results. Was that girl, a fighter and a good one to say the very least, could that girl be more perfect then he was, more perfect then the perfect soldier?


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

One month later..

  
  


"Oh come on babe." Duo coaxed "Just this once."

"Duo, leave me the hell alone." Teardra whirled around "I've said the same thing every other time you've asked. Stop wasting your breath."

"But you're the one I want to waste it on." He protested "Give me a break for once. All I want is for you to have dinner with me."

"If you don't stop asking me, I'll make sure something will break." She threatened

Duo winced but didn't stop "Come on angel. Just give me a chance. Why do you always treat me like this?"

She got up in his face, her lips barely an inch from his "You want to know? Well, first of all, you're a weakling, second, you have no morals, nor pride. Third, you annoy the hell out of me and lastly, you're a normal man." She patted his cheek lightly, turned and walked away

Duo let her words settle in before a light went on over his head "Are you a lesbian? Is that why you keep pushing me away and act like all men are scum?" He ran after her "It's okay if you are, I don't' mind, in fact, I think it's cool. Come on Teardra, everything is okay now, I understand and I promise I won't tell anyone if you don't want me too."

"Duo!" She yelled from down the hall, clenching her fists

"Come on sweetie." He tried to get her to walk back to him by holding out his arms

Teardra, on the other hand, ducked around a corner and through a door which she locked behind her. "Teardra? What are you doing? Let me in, all I want to do is talk." When she didn't make a move to open the door he continued "Fine, be that way, I'll stay out here for as long as it takes, you can't stay in there forever."

"He's serious you realize." She heard Quatre speak from behind her

"Why can't he just get the point?" She asked "He keeps asking me out and I keep turning him down. I have no intention of getting involved with anything here except that Gundam."

Quatre picked Satunia out of her playpen and set her on the floor by his feet. After looking around the room with big eyes, she crawled over to Teardra's feet and plopped down, stuck her thumb in her mouth and looked up at her with curious bronze eyes. "You realize you've been involved since the day we found you." He smiled sincerely "Duo obviously cared about you but it's a lot more then just that. Even though he really doesn't say much to show it, Trowa cares about you just like a little sister. Even Wufei and Heero care about you in their own ways. Whether you've noticed it or not, they're all very protective of you and they're always taking extra steps to make sure that you're happy and comfortable. I care about you too, I've never been around any girl that was about my age that I could protect. It's always been the other way around since I have 29 older sisters. They were always looking out for me and I'm finally getting a taste of what it's like. You're such a unique and special person that even a baby like Satunia can sense that."

Teardra looked down at the baby who stared right back up at her wide-eyed and with a soft dimpled baby smile across her face. "I don't like this but I guess I'm going to have to learn to put up with it to a certain extent." She sighed "Babies have more efficient intuitions then any other creature in this universe. They learn to find good from evil faster then anyone else can. Especially this one, she's got something different about her. It's almost as if she's smarter and more aware of things then we are. She's going to grow up to be something really great, I can see it already."

"I'm happy you feel that way about her and I'm sure she is too." Quatre watched the two of them with a happy smile spread across his face.

Teardra looked up at him, her face almost completely empty of all emotion "Quatre, you probably are the weakest soldier out of all of us." She commented monotonely "But you're probably also the only one of us that could survive in a normal peaceful world." She set Satunia back on the ground and turned to leave.

"Teardra." Quatre spoke up quietly. She turned again to look at him "Thank you." He commented simply

She gave him a strange look "For what?"

"For being a friend." He replied, "In this world, true friends are about as rare and as precious as the ideal of true peace."

Teardra kept looking at him for a moment longer, the beginnings of a smile playing at the corners of her lips but turning and leaving before they had the opportunity to grow.

She ran into Wufei in the hall. "Come on." He said, pausing for a brief moment. She began to follow him to the mobile suit storage bay where their suits were all located. "What happened?" She asked

"Another colony was just destroyed." He replied, not giving out anymore information then was necessary "Colony N-12."

"A normal colony." She remarked "No extra supplies necessary for it."

"The plan is to go there and to get back as soon as possible."

"Sounds like an idea." She replied "In fact it sounds like the same idea that we've been working with for the past month."

Wufei looked at her silently, "You have the mind set of the perfect soldier." he noticed "You deserve more respect then what I can offer you." He pushed off the floor and floated rest of the way to the bay. Teardra mimicked the action, letting the lack of gravity carry her.

The other three pilots were making last minute adjustments on their suits. Wufei was inside the cockpit, waiting for the command to take off. Nataku, the name for his Altron Gundam, was always in perfect updated condition. Wufei treated his suit like a child, spending his every waking hour with it, as if he was married to it.

Teardra had checked Sandrock over every morning after breakfast ever since she was given the suit to pilot. She knew for a fact that the suit was as perfect as she could get it. She slipped on her helmet and climbed into the cockpit. She was still trying to undo the bumps and hollows left in the seat from years of having Quatre in it She sighed and watched Heero tinkering with the Wing Zero. She was actually envious of that suit. It was by far the most powerful yet the most graceful out of all of the Gundams. Trowa's Heavyarms was bulky and ran out of ammunition much too quickly, Deathscythe Hell's reaction time was too slow and the wings attached to it often got in the way while fighting. Nataku, well, just the thought of a suit named after someone's dead wife was enough to make her shiver. Sandrock was weak in her eyes. There weren't enough weapons to work with and they were all meant for close range combat. She had installed a laser gun at the front but she still was dissatisfied with the reaction time and the overall strength that it was capable of putting out. 

Heero climbed into the cockpit of the Wing Zero and strapped himself in "Are you guys ready?" He was met with the silence of voice and the sounds of four other suits being powered up. Heero didn't say anything else, talking over excessively wasn't his thing. He'd leave that for Duo and Teardra. The back hatch opened to allow them to fly out into the endless extent of space.

They arrived at the colony relatively quickly, it wasn't far in comparison to some of the others they had been to. It seemed as normal as any place invaded by Death could be. The temperature was hot, the sky was an orangish-red color, clouds of soot and ash grey spots on the discolored sky. This colony seemed to be even smaller then the one they found Teardra in. There were three straight streets leading from a large park where they landed their Gundams. No one was lying in the streets so they began the tedious job of going from house to house, Heero and Duo on one street, Trowa and Teardra on another, and Wufei alone on the last. 

Wufei walked into every home there was, unlike the other pilots whom he knew had the tendency to skip over the fully demolished ones, just to save time. He gazed outside for a moment, his mouth set in a grim line. The people of this colony had already suffered one injustice, their lives had been taken away in vain and left without vengeance taken. He would do everything in his power to find the slightest bit of justice he could give them. He refused to skip over any of the homes, if there was the chance that someone was still alive, he was going to do everything in his power to find them and bring some sense of peace to the lost souls.

He entered the next home only to find nothing in the front room where the families were normally gathered. He walked up the stairs and looked in the two bedrooms There he found a middle aged couple in one room but the other room, which seemed to belong to a girl between 16 and 18 was empty, and other then the dust from the cracked ceiling, the room was in perfect order. Whoever slept in that room was obviously not there. He walked back downstairs and into the kitchen area where he found her. The only thing that he noticed right away that unlike her parents, she was very much alive.

The girl was very petite and didn't look much more then fourteen although she wore the pendent that showed that she had to be at least sixteen. She had wavy shoulder length red hair that fell down to her shoulders. He couldn't see much about her facial features, all he had the view of was her soft, almost child-like profile. She was dressed conservatively, wearing a green tank-top with darker green spaghetti straps and an ankle length green skirt that ended in a pair of strappy green sandals. His eyes narrowed, what kind of woman was she? Her colony ad been hit by thermal energy bombs, her parents were dead and she was sitting at the table sipping a cup of tea.

She looked up him and smiled "I've been waiting, what took you so long this time?"

"What do you mean?" Wufei asked suspiciously

"I know all about you pilots and your heroic quests to save the colonies. I know all about you, Wufei Chang, I know all about your fight for justice. I know how you lost your only love before you realized you loved her. I know exactly why you're here."

Wufei pulled a gun out from his pocket and held it in his hand, debating whether or not he should use it on her. "Put your weapon away." She laughed "I mean you no harm. You have a friend with a child, if I'm right, Quatre, isn't it? Well, I want to help him and the rest of you out since I have no intention of piloting a suit and since I do like children, I figured this will work out very well for everyone for the time being."

Wufei dropped his gun on the floor and stared at her in shock "Oh, I'm sorry." She held out her hand "My name is Katya Anne Ruvera. Now lets get to Peacemillion." She stood up and Wufei's jaw dropped almost to the level of his gun that was lying on the floor. Although the right side of her outfit was modest, the left side of her skirt had a slit that almost went up to the top of her thigh. He regained his composure and glared at her, distastefully. He had no intention of letting her stay with them but at least she was ready to go. "I've got to finish checking the rest of the houses first." He spoke for the first time since meeting her "There might be more survivors."

"I'm the only one on this street." She replied "I figured I'd save you some time by checking ahead of time."

Wufei sighed "Did you check every house?" He asked "Even the ones that were completely destroyed?"

"Everyone else on this street is gone." She replied "Trust me on that one."

"Damn it." He swore, sinking down into a chair "This colony wasn't hit as hard as the others. I thought there would be more."

"Would you like a cup of tea to calm your nerves?" She offered

"No thank you." He replied "I just need to sit for a little while."

"People are never going to learn." She said, sitting down across from him, "These exact actions were started millions of years ago and the human mind will never be able to forget the concept of war and fighting now that it has been developed this far."

"Too many people have died because of this." Wufei yelled, slamming his fist down on to the table, making the teapot jump "Someone has to see how wrong this is."

"Someone already has." Katya smiled at him "More people then you realize but still a definitely minority."

"A handful of people aren't enough." He replied after a moment "100 people aren't enough to change the minds of a galaxy of people."

'If anyone could, it would be you pilots." She said softly "You've worked miracles where hope was gone. You brought peace to a war-hungry beast of a world."

"That beast of a world just spit it out again." Wufei shot back

"Oh Wufei," She sighed sadly "This world has hurt you so much more then you're willing to admit."

"What would you know?" He demanded "You're just a baka onna with unusual powers." He stood up "You're going to the Earth just like everyone else."

She picked up a small cloth bag, the smile gone from her face "Let's get going then." She said simply

Wufei led her down the street to the blackened park where they had parked the Gundams. The other four pilots were already back, with two little boys and an elderly man.

"Katya!" The two boys ran over and held onto her "You're okay!"

"Are you coming with us?" The youngest looking of the two asked hopefully

She shook her head and smiled gently at them "I'm going to stay with these nice people for awhile." 

"Who says?" Teardra butted in "We don't need the help of a refugee."

Katya looked her in the eye "Don't be a hypocrite." She said softly, so no one else would hear "You were one not too long ago if you remember."

Teardra's face paled but her eyes remained hard "Who told you that?" She demanded, glaring at Wufei.

"It wasn't him." Katya replied "I just know."

"What are you talking about?" Teardra demanded "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"No." Katya said "Nor have you heard of me to the best of my knowledge. I just know these things."

"What good are you going to be?" Heero demanded "Are you a mobile suit pilot?"

"No and I know I won't be able to do it so don't bother testing me on your system."

"Then what do you plan on doing for us?" Trowa asked "You do have a reason, right?"

"Yes I do. You have a friend, Quatre if I'm right and I know he has a baby to take care of so I thought I'd take care of her with him until the new suit is finished. Then Quatre can start fighting again, if he wants to and if he doesn't, then I'll go to the Earth with everyone else."

Heero pulled a gun out of his spandex shorts and aimed it at her "How do you know all of this? If you don't have a good explanation, then I'm going to kill you."

"I'm sorry if I upset you." She replied, holding up her hands in a sign of surrender "But the only way I can explain this to you is that I have a gift. I can see the past of people and places. I guess it's called living history but I can just take a look at a person and everything they've done will be revealed to me as I need it. I don't have to wonder why a person is the way they are, I know."

"First we get an ice princess and now this." Duo sighed but then his mouth spread into a broad grin "The good thing is that if we have to have a bunch of weirdos with us, at least they're good looking."

Teardra slapped his cheek "Who are you calling weird? Braid boy?"

"Don't worry about it Teardra." Duo reassured her "You're a babe even if you are nuts."

Katya giggled, watching the two of them bickering. Trowa, Heero, and Wufei stood back with the other three survivors, observing the scene with bored expressions on their faces.

After about another fifteen minutes Heero stepped in the middle of them "Break it up you two." He said firmly "We have to get these three to the Earth a.s.a.p" He glanced at Katya "We'll drop you off at Peacemillion on the way so you see Quatre and the baby."

She smiled "Thank you."

Heero turned and walked over to the Wing Zero "Since Wufei found you, you can ride back with him. The rest of us are going to the Earth first and we'll be back there in about eight hours."

"Come on if you're intent on coming." Wufei said, walking over to Altron. He grasped the handle that would pull them both up in a single lift.

"You're going to have to sit on my lap." Wufei said, settling into the seat "There isn't anywhere else."

"That's fine." She replied, setting on one of his legs. Wufei adjusted the belts to fit around both of them and then took off.

Their journey back to the large battleship was completely silent and uneventful. She knew that he wasn't much of a talker, he never had been to her knowledge. he had been a quiet scholar who just wanted to be left to his studies. Even now she suspected that he would be happier with a book then with a mecha.

Wufei flew his Nataku into the machine bay of Peacemillion and helped Katya to the ground. "I'll help you find Quatre and then I've got some work to do out here."

He began to walk through the different hallways, peaking into different rooms until he stopped in the doorway of one. "Winner, there's someone here who needs to talk to you." Wufei spoke from the doorway, blocking her from sight.

"Who is it?" She heard another male voice from inside the room.

Wufei stepped to the side to she could move into the room "I've got go and fix up Nataku." He turned abruptly and left.

"Come on it." Quatre gestured to the seat across from him "From the way he was acting, I take it this isn't a pleasure visit."

"More of an offer." She replied walking in and sitting down in the chair My name is Katya Anne Ruvera."

"Quatre Winner." He replied "Could you explain to me why you're here? I don't think I know you or have even heard of you before." He studied her a bit closer, "Do you know any of my sisters? There are..." She cut him off

"29 of them, I know." She laughed "Quite an extensive family if I do say so but I don't know any of them. I'm actually here because of her." She gestured to Satunia

"Are you a relative or a friend of the family?" He asked nervously

"No, I know about you problems." She replied "I'm here to keep an eye on her if you'll agree to it."

"Did Heero force you into it?" Quatre pressed further

"No, no one mentioned a thing to me about it, I just know these things, it's a gift I have."

"Why do you want to take care of her?" Quatre asked

"I want to help out with the war and I know I can help out a little if I take care of her so you can go out to fight again if you want to."

"There aren't enough Gundams." Quatre replied "Teardra has Sandrock now."

"That wasn't my question." Katya said "I want to know if you would want to fight again if there were enough suits."

Quatre nodded "I just feel the need to do something besides sit around all day. I need to be out there and helping in any way I can."

"Take me to Dr. J." She said, standing up with a nod "I know where you can find one of your suits."

Quatre picked up Satunia and walked down the hallway and into the working bay where the men were still working on the new Gundam suit. "Why, hello there." Dr. J got up from his seat in front of the computer "What can I do for you?"

"I know where one of the Gundams are located. She said, getting right to the point "I think the scientists referred to it as Epyon."

"Where is it/" The aged Doctor asked, his voice raising with excitement

"It's back on my home colony." She replied "It was recovered after the Lighting Count vanished"

"Don't you mean died?" Quatre asked "No human could have survived that explosion, not even Zechs."

"His body was never recovered." She replied "Until the body is found, I prefer to think of him as missing in action."

"Where in your home is the Epyon?" Dr. J inquired further

"It's in a hidden factory underground. I was a spy, working to make sure the Gundam stayed secret. The laborers that worked on it died but I'm sure the suit is still there. Nothing in the known world has the capability of completely destroying that suit, I feel that's what Treize Kushranada had in mind when he ordered it's construction."

"You'll have to show us where it is." Professor S came into the room "I'll take you there and Quatre can try and fly it back."

"Let's get a shuttle ready to go." Quatre put in "The others will be back soon." He looked over at Katya "Are you ready to go?"

She nodded "I must warn you though, that suit probably isn't quite ready for flight yet. They weren't able to successfully complete it before the colony was destroyed."

"Then we'll carry it back here and finish it." Professor S replied "Let's get moving."

The three of them as well as about ten workers loaded into a large space shuttle and headed out to the colony again. 

Katya walked through the streets to a small shack that she walked inside of and opened a door on the floor before descending below the surface. She placed her hand against the identification check and then led them through the doorway and through a maze of tunnels until she stopped in front of a broken glass window that looked in on a red colored Gundam suit. For a few moments, they all just stared up at it in shock. "Well, we better get moving." Professor S broke the silence. The workers began to attach wires and chains to the suit and then to the space shuttle. Soon after, they piled back into the shuttle and dragged the Gundam through the roof of the factory and the layers of ground that were piled onto of it. The suit came through unscathed and they began the journey back to Peacemillion.

The other four pilots, Heero, Duo, Trowa, and Teardra found Wufei in the bay. "Where did everyone go?" Trowa asked

"With that woman back to her colony." He muttered "Keep an eye on the kid, now that you're back. I don't have the time to be a baby-sitter."

Duo picked Satunia out of her playpen "Why did they go?" He wondered aloud

"Guys, you might want to take a look at this." Trowa said, staring out the window. They all rushed over and stared out in shock

"What is that thing?" Teardra demanded 

"Epyon." Heero breathed, his cold cobalt eyes overtaken with a wild animalistic hunger.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

  
  


"Come on Satunia." Katya pleaded with the almost 1year old girl "Will you please just eat the nice carrots?"

"No." Satunia crossed her arms over her chest shoved the dish to the edge of her tray and wrinkled her nose "Yucky." The dish of carrots wobbled on the edge of the tray and fell onto the floor.

Katya sighed, set Satunia in her playpen and began to clean up the mushy orange mess. The door slid open and Quatre walked into the room "Any luck?" She asked

"We don't know yet." He replied, walking over to sit by his daughter "Dr. J came up with a new chemical that will find life on the colonies and will lead us right to the survivors. We're just waiting for the reports to come in."

"How does it work?" She wondered

"The chemical is kind of a heat sensor. It finds life by the body heat. As a person dies and stays dead, the body temperature decreases rapidly. There is a significant different between the living and the deceased."

"Do you think it actually works?" She asked

"We have to wait and see." He replied

"Why do you have to come back here to find the results? That seems like it would take up too much time. Wouldn't it be more effective if you just got the data at the colony and were able to find the survivors right then and there?"

"We wanted to test it out on a colony before we have Professor S and the mechanics install the tracking devices in the suits. There's no point in installing it if it doesn't work right."

"You've got a point there." She said thoughtfully before continuing with cleaning up the mess on the floor.

The door opened again and Wufei, Duo, and Teardra walked into the room "How much longer?" Quatre asked them

"The data is just beginning to come in." Wufei answered him "It's going to be a bit longer."

"Are you going to go around after the tests to make sure that it didn't miss anyone?" Katya asked

"We're going to have to for the first few trials." Teardra said "Just to make sure that it works perfectly."

"How big is this colony?"

"The smallest one in existence." Duo replied "We wanted to try it out on a small place first so there isn't much to look for after we find the survivors we're hoping the chemical will point out to us. The population is only about 1,500."

"There's one family there that my father often spoke of." Quatre said from where he was sitting with Satunia "They were ver influential and wealthy pacifists. They gave most of their money to create new jobs for the poorer people of the colony and they set up soup kitchens and a few nice shelters." He sighed "I hope they're alright."

"Don't count on it." Wufei said, walking around the room, doing a series of punches and kicks "It was hit hard. I'd say four survivors at the most." He did a few more steps "Besides, these people sound a lot like your father and you saw how OZ targeted him and had him assassinated. They probably viewed these people a problem and made it a point to have them killed."

Katya looked at him sadly, once and pessimist, always a pessimist. She knew why he was the way he was but there should have been way to break through his outer shell, she just wished that she could find it. 

Quatre sensed the ever-changing mood of the conversation and changed the subject quickly "How are you liking the Wing Zero?" He asked Teardra "Are you having any problems piloting it?"

Her eyes lit up with a spark "It's such an amazing mecha, so quick and agile. I don't really have any problems with it except every once in awhile, it tries to mess with my vision but if you blink really quickly, it stops. I get such an awesome feeling when I'm piloting it, as if my senses are being expanded."

"That's what the suit is built for. Just don't get disillusioned by it." Heero's voice came from the doorway "Guys, the data came in. We've got to check it out and get going."

Quatre bent down to kiss Satunia and pat her head before walking out with the others to the room where Dr. J stood in front of the computer. He hit a button that made a large tan map pop up on to the screen. "The green areas are those with very little body heat, probably from the people who have died about 15 minutes ago. The yellow areas are from the dying, too far gone for you to help or worry about. The red area is where you defiantly want to go first." He zoomed in on the lower right area and the mid left. "Those are your three survivors if the data is correct. You've got to hurry up though, you don't know how much time these people have left." He brought up a second map, still with the same red marks "Get into your suits and I'll send this data to you every few minutes, time isn't on our side. Get going!"

The six pilots ran out to the bay and climbed into their suits. The door opened and they flew out of their ship and through space towards the colony.

Heero hit a few keys to make the connection to Peacemillion. A few seconds later, the map came up on the screen. "Guys, it looks like there are four people with the higher body temperature at this point. This doesn't necessarily mean they are all still alive but there is a high chance that they are. Quatre, Trowa, and Teardra, you go to the area where the two bodies are almost right on top of each other. Duo, Wufei, and I will go and locate the other two and then check out the rest of the colony around that area." He hit a button to send the data to the other pilots and then opened the link between the Epyon and Sandrock. "Quatre, if they are any survivors when we get there, I want you to be the one to take them back to Peacemillion. You can calm them down better then anyone else and with the war on Earth blocking all the airports, they're going to be stuck at Peacemillion for quite some time."

"Roger that." Quatre replied "The only problem is that I can only fit one other fully grown body in this cockpit with me, I can fit two child sized but that's still going to be rather crowded. Trowa, could you take someone back if there are two many for me to handle?" The line between Sandrock and Heavyarms remained silent "Okay, I'm taking that as a sign you don't mind. Teardra, if the two of us have to leave to go to Peacemillion, would you be okay checking out the rest of that area on your own? You could always call the others for back-up or if you find another survivor and you have to leave." Once again, he was answered with silence "I guess that's another yes." Heero saw Quatre smile sadly before the link was closed. He stared straight ahead, even though Quatre tried to hide it, it was becoming obvious that he was very lonely. He was used to living with a huge family and always having someone around to talk to He was now fighting with a group of six other soldiers, three of whom didn't seem to like talking over excessively, a girl who was too odd to carry on a casual conversation with, Duo, who didn't shut up long enough for him to be able to carry on a conversation with, and Teardra, who was so cynical and negative that talking to her was always like a slap in the face. As the colony came into view, his mind snapped back to the mission. A new set of data with an updated map appeared in front of him and he quickly sent it to the others before analyzing it himself. One of the red areas had faded into a light green, another was fading into a dark orangish-red. On the other side of the colony, however, the other two areas were as bold as ever. Heero made a few calculations and mentally determined that by the time they arrived at the colony, that third body, the orange-red one, would be too far gone for them to help. He, Duo, and Wufei would probably be able to start searching soon after landing. 

About fifteen minutes later, the six suits landed in an open field outside the main part of the city. Quatre glanced over in the distance where he knew the home of the VanMorette's was located. His heart sank about a foot and the hope glowing in his eyes left as he spotted the smoldering remains of their home.

Trowa followed his sad gaze. "It looks like the explosives were planted right there." He spoke softly "OZ doesn't like pacifism and makes it a point to destroy powerful and influential pacifists."

"It's just depressing to see the people that were that close to my family wiped out like that." He blinked back tears, not seeing the others wince at the mentioned word that hurt them the most: family.

"Let's get going." Heero said abruptly "Quatre, Trowa, and Teardra, the area you should start with is down that was." He gestured to the southeast "Go down about three blocks, take a right and then house with the two survivors should be the fifth building on the right if the map is correct."

The three mentioned nodded and took off at a brisk pace. Heero nodded at Duo and Wufei and then took off for the place where the third reddish area was on the map.

He glared at the broken down trailer and with the help of Wufei, got the piece of twisted metal. that used to be a door open so they could walk inside. 

They sifted around through the ruble discovering two bodies under a broken window. Duo felt their skin and shook his head "There has to be at least one more person." He said "These two have been dead for quite awhile."

Wufei walked through the hallway, gazing into the other rooms. "here." He said monotonely "She's in here."

Heero and Duo walked in ahead of him and felt for a pulse. "She's dead." Heero declared "I had a feeling we'd be too late."

Duo arranged her arms in the normal cross pattern as he did for almost every other deceased person he found. Other then the small gold cross he wore, it was the only other way one could tell that he grew up in a Catholic church. "Ready?" Wufei asked impatiently "We've got to hurry up and see whether or not there are anymore survivors."

Heero nodded in agreement and then waited for Duo to stand up again "let's go." He said simple

* * * 

Trowa, Quatre, and Teardra entered the large warehouse that Heero's directions led them to. The back half of the building had caved in and from the ripped material and scattered personal possessions, the walls and ceiling had fallen in on the living areas. Quatre shivered as the cold feeling hit him but he tried to force them aside, there were people here that were depending on them. "there's a door over in the corner." Teardra noticed "You two look up here and I'll find out where the doorway leads." She turned quickly and left.

Trowa began to sift through the ruble at the far right of the room. Quatre began at the other end digging and moving boards and searching for a pulse in the bodies he found.

For the longest time, they searched in silence until Quatre began to softly sing a traditional hymn for the dead that his father had taught him. The only other time he had sung it was at the funeral of the dead baby of one of his older sisters. After seeing how sad it made the people at the funeral, he had sworn never to preform that song again but for some reason, it just seemed appropriate for the time. "Quatre, did you hear that?" Trowa interrupted, standing up suddenly

Quatre stopped his singing and began to listen more attentively "It sounds like breathing." He noticed, the hope returning to his eyes "Normal breathing. Trowa! We're not too late!"

Trowa moved to the center of the ruins and began to sift around. Quatre quickly did the same, moving around the rubble, looking for the life. He began to push and try to lift a large slab of plaster but to no avail. "Trowa, could you help me with this?" He asked

Trowa came over and together, they moved the plaster, revealing two bodies protected by the falling plaster by a beam that had hit them both and then moved into a position that kept the weight of the plaster from crushing them. The young man had his body draped over that of the even younger female. Both were still breathing but didn't stir when Quatre tapped them "They're unconscious." He noted "We better hurry up and get them back." Trowa quickly lifted up the man and began to walk quickly out of the building. 

Quatre gently lifted the girl into his arms and ran over to the door where Teardra had disappeared into "Teardra, we found the two people. Keep looking here and if you need help, call the others. These two are in pretty bad shape and we have to hurry up and get them back to Peacemillion right now!" He shouted into the darkness before turning and leaving the building for the field where the Gundams were. Trowa was already in Heavyarms, with the straps on and waiting for the orders to lift off.

Quatre adjusted his hold on her so he could grasp the handle of the lift and somehow managed to keep his grip on her in the process. He wasn't nearly as strong as the rest of the pilots and the slippery silk of her outfit didn't help him any. 

Somehow he managed to keep his grip on her long enough to move them into the cockpit and after repositioning her body so he was able to start up Sandrock, he opened up the sound connection to Heavyarms "Let's get going." He said to Trowa before starting up his suit and putting it in auto-pilot on the course back to Peacemillion. He wanted to take a better look at that girl so he could get her minor wounds taken care of. He studied her for a few minutes, she was very attractive, even with all of the bruises and cuts marring her skin. She was a complete contrast of him from what he could see. Long jet black hair, a tanned complexion, he expected her eyes would be brown or green, like most other girls he had met that looked somewhat like her. 

After another moment, he took out the small first aid kit he kept inside of Sandrock in case Heero went on another self-detonating spree. He took out a few clean cloth pads and disinfectant as well as some bandages and began to work on her face, neck, and lower legs, making sure not to touch anything covered by her outfit, or from the symbol on her right breast pocket, a uniform. "You just sleep tight." Quatre spoke quietly "Whoever you are." Her arm shifter and a little bit of light reflected on a piece of metal that hung around her wrist. He glanced down at it and smiled "Calisia Rose, huh? Well, at least you're no nanashi anymore." He looked at it carefully again "I've heard that name somewhere before and it doesn't seem like it's very common." He shrugged "Must be one of my sisters or a niece or something."

A hour passed as they made their journey through space to their home ship. They had begun the boarding process when Trowa opened up the video link "I notified the doctors about their condition and they should be waiting for us." He said "Make sure you tell them anything you've noticed about her, at least then they'll have a little bit of information to work from."

They landed in the bay and as quickly as they shut off their suits and took the two unconscious victims to the main corridor, the ship's medical crew were right there hooking them up to tubes and bags and then rushing them away on stretchers.

"Do you think they were from a rebel group or something?" Quatre asked

"I was beginning to think that way." Trowa replied "The design on the pocket really convinced me though."

"What was it?" Quatre asked "I didn't get a good look at it, I was too busy trying to fix up her cuts and scratches."

"I guess the easiest way to describe it was a pair of angel wing with a few other symbols underneath of them. I didn't understand what they meant though."

"Could you make an estimation on how old that guy was?"

"He had the tattoo so he's defiantly older then 17. I'd say about 20, 21 at the most. Why do you ask?"

"That girl can't be any older then we are." He said softly "I just think it's really sad that so many younger people are beginning to get involved in wars. We've fought to they can live a normal life. Now they all feel like they have to fight because the adults don't want to anymore."

Trowa stood silently for a minute, "I just hope that we're not the reason that these young people are fighting. We've suffered so much already, they don't need to go through what we did. Our lives, well, at least my life will end with a number on a grave. I'm a nameless soldier, everything I knew was lost in the battlefield."

A few of the doctors ran out of the medical room frantically to grab supplies and papers from folders shouting to one another.

"What's going on?" Trowa asked one of the medics that seemed calmer then the rest 

"We're losing one of them quickly." He explained, flipping through a clipboard "There are several blood clots in the main artery and in the veins leading from the heart." Her ripped off a few sheets of paper and ran back into the room that he had come from.

Trowa turned and began to walk away "Come on Quatre." He said softly "There's nothing more we can do right now."

Quatre nodded an followed him back to the room where Katya stayed with Satunia for the most part "Any luck?" She asked as they entered the room "Did it work right?"

"It led us to the survivors, we just have to make sure it led us to all of the survivors." Quatre replied 

"How many did you find?"

"Two." He answered "Heero, Duo, and Wufei were looking for the third. Since they haven't brought anyone back, I'm assuming the other person didn't live long enough for the others to save."

"That's too bad." She said with a soft sigh

"That's not all." He continued "One of the two we brought back is dying or at least that's what the doctors told us."

"Which one is it?" She asked

Quatre looked over at Trowa and shrugged "I don't know, we didn't have time to ask."

Trowa stood up and left the room, only to appear again about seven minutes later "it was the guy." He informed them from the doorway 

"Was?" Quatre asked, praying that it was just a simple mistake

Trowa nodded "He passed away a few minutes ago, they weren't able to bring him back again."

"What about the girl?" He asked anxiously

"She's unconscious right now but her injuries were mostly minor. She got some cuts and bruises and a broken ankle but there is one thing that the medics are worried about. She took a bad blow to the head and they aren't quite sure on how that will affect her when she wakes up." He handed Quatre a small brown bag "Why don't you hold onto her things until she regains consciousness?"

He nodded and glanced inside or it. Along with her navy blue uniform and shoes, there were the two pieces of jewelry, the silver identification bracelet and her pendent, glittering with pure silver and diamonds in the light of the room. The yellow diamond was set in the middle of both. "Wow." Quatre breathed, turning it around in his hands "She must be from a wealthy family to have this one. It's what each one of my sisters got because of Father's wealth and influence."

"It's probably not hers." Trowa said shattering Quatre's hopes once again "If she was in a mercenary group which is what it looks like, they probably had to hide a lot about themselves. There is a very good chance that this necklace isn't hers. She probably stole it or had it stolen for her."

"How do you know all of this?" Quatre asked

"I was in a mercenary group when I was younger and from what I saw, things like that were very common."

Satunia walked over to Quatre and pulled on his slacks "Daddy, read to me." She ordered, holding out an almost ancient copy of fairy tales.

"Give me a few more minutes sweetie." He said with a smile "I've got to go and put this stuff away."

He walked down the hall to the room he shared with Duo and placed her bag on things on the floor in his side of the closet. "Quatre, hurry up back to the bay." Trowa came onto the intercom "There's been an accident, colony F-83 crashed into a star and has been severally damaged."

"Be right there." Quatre replied grimly "Sorry Satunia but it looks like you're going to have to take a rain check on that story." He shut off the lights and ran out of the room.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

  
  


"Like hell this was an accident." Duo growled at the screen

"Colonies are completely immobile." Wufei added, "They can't move unless some outside force makes them."

"OZ really did it this time." Duo grumbled "Now they're trying to hide what they've done."

"That isn't the way OZ works." Heero spoke up, "They're a bunch of cowards. They thrive on the fear they gain from the people. Most of the fear nowadays comes from their ability to destroy homes and lives without a second thought. People fear losing their loved ones and that just gives OZ more confidence and more power over them." He shook his head, "I highly doubt that OZ is behind this one."

"Then who do you think it is?" Teardra asked

"I'm just trying to say that we're going to need to be careful now. Ever since the White Fang was dissolved, the colonies have been searching for a new power to support. We have to be on guard so they don't destroy the little bit of peace we have right now."

"Where's the peace in families and innocent people being destroyed almost weekly?" Wufei shot back, "The Earth is in turmoil without any strong leader to guide them. They don't even have OZ anymore since they're concentrating on space right now. Both are searching for a new ruler to arise from the dust and to help them begin recovering from the chaotic times they're in right now."

"More the reason for us to be on our toes." Heero said sharply, "Look at the rulers they've decided to support in the past. Treize, Zechs, Mariemeia, they were all insane and as for Treize, he still is insane. For now, we have to worry about keeping Relena safe on Earth until OZ is destroyed. After there isn't anyone left to threaten her life, she can start helping both Earth and Space rebuild. As much as I hate to admit it, her life is going to be crucial in the upcoming era."

"If Relena Peacecraft is so influential then why not just bring her out here now and have her start showing the colonies what OZ is doing and help them get through it politically." Teardra asked

"For the simple reason that she would be assassinated if she took a foot outside of the safehouse we have her in." Heero replied "She has plenty of security watching out for her and she knows how to get a hold of us if it's absolutely necessary. We can't risk her losing her life in this stage of the game."

"How can one person be the hope for everyone?" Teardra demanded, "If people really want to obtain peace, then they don't need one figure to control their hope. They just have to realize that they are the majority and if they all join together, then they can do what they want to do."

"Don't even say that." Wufei warned, "We've been through that before. The people are too frantic now to make any rational decisions and they would just make more problems that we would have to solve."

"Hn." Heero switched off the connections between his suit and the others as they entered the colony and prepared to land.

Sandrock and Heavyarms were already in a large clearing, the two pilots looking around forlornly at the barren land. 

"What happened here?" Duo asked, hopping out of Deathscythe, "It's completely empty!"

"It's like the land was set on fire just to get rid of the debris." Trowa said, picking up a charred branch, "There isn't anything here. No ashes, no homes, no bodies."

"We might as well stay the night." Wufei commented, checking his watch. "There may be something on the other side of the colony. Have you checked everywhere yet?" When they shook their heads, he continued, "Okay then. We have about a half-hour before the lights turn off. We should be able to cover a mile at the very least. We'll just camp where we can and then start again in the morning." 

"Let's get going then." Duo said, picking up his bag that was always packed with a blanket, matches, toilet paper, some canned food and a can opener. All the pilots had similar bags, just in case situations like the one they were experiencing occurred. 

They began their journey through the bare land, occasionally finding some more charred ruble or some tiny plants trying to poke their way through the surface, trying to produce some life amidst all the death and destruction. However, other then those few things, the colony was just a hollow shell.

"Heero, is something like this really possible?" Duo asked

Heero pulled out his laptop and began to type into it as he continued to walk. "Very unlikely." He said finally, "The star that this colony crashed into was already in its last stage. It didn't possess enough heat, nor energy to produce a reaction like this one." He looked up, "Besides, the outer walls are almost completely undamaged. There was some intentional destruction in the inside after the supposed accident had taken place."

"OZ really wasn't behind this one, was it?" Quatre asked softly

"The evidence we have is pointing to the development of a new organization." Heero replied, setting his bag down on the ground. "We might as well stay here for the night. We've got about ten minutes before the lights go out and we still have to get a fire going. There are some decent branches over under that rock so we can get settled for the night now."

They quickly gathered the scattered branches and lit a fire before spreading out their blankets around the fire and breaking out the cans and bottles that contained their evening meal. 

"Do you think everyone is really dead?" Duo asked

"Not sure." Heero replied, "It looks that way so far but for all we know, everyone on the other side could still be alive."

Teardra took a spoonful of soup from her can and ate it, looking very thoughtful. "Hey babe, what are you thinking about?" Duo asked, moving over next to her. "Wait! Let me guess, you're daydreaming about the day you'll be able to be the Goddess of Death, right?"

"In your dreams!" She exclaimed, elbowing him in the ribs and making him tumble over backwards. She fixed her eyes on the remaining pilots. "What did you say the name of this colony was?" She asked

"F-83." Trowa answered her, "Why? Do you know someone who lived here?"

"Possibly." She replied, "Do you remember how I told you about the other element princesses? The earth, lightning, water, air, fire, and light?" When they nodded, she took another bite of soup and spoke again "I was just trying to remember what colonies they were on. If you want to know the truth, the colonies were partially named for us. The clusters where each of us were located were given the beginning letter of our element. This is a fire colony and I was trying to remember where the fire princess was living when I last heard about her."

"Wow! You mean there are more babes like you out there!" Duo sat up with a huge grin on his face, "Just please tell me that they aren't all lesbians like you are. Not like that's a bad thing or anything." He added in a rush, "Well, it's a bad thing for me but if that's the way you want to swing, then go for it."

"Duo!" She groaned, "I'll prove to you once and for all that I'm not a lesbian!" She grabbed him by the collar, pulled him off the ground and pressed her lips to his as the others looking. Heero seemed indifferent, he was typing in his laptop at the time but Trowa was amused, Quatre seemed to think it was sweet while Wufei looked on with disgust. 

"Wow!" Duo exclaimed when she released him, "Not bad for a lesie."

Teardra sighed, shook her head and went back to her can of soup that had somehow grown warmer over the past few minutes

They sat around eating silently for the next few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts when the first heat wave hit them full-force. "Wow!!!" Duo shouted, jumping up with sweat dripping off the tip of his nose, "Did you guys feel that?"

"What was it?" Wufei jumped up as well, katana in hand.

"If I knew I would have said something by now." Heero rose up pointing his handgun out at the darkness.

The heat faded away for a moment but then it was back, constantly getting stronger as the pilots frantically tried to figure out what was going on. "Look!" Quatre exclaimed, "The land is on fire!"

"How is this possible?" Wufei asked after watching it for a moment, "It's in a perfect circle around us."

"It's not really burning anything." Trowa noticed as the flames began to close in on them.

The flames were closing in on them, a little bit at a time, as if it was trying to size them up from a distance. It licked at the bare land but never really devoured anything. It was just resting on top of the ground, using it for a way to move itself.

Teardra, who had been observing the flames suspiciously leapt up and pointed an accusing finger at it "That's no fire." She declared "Show yourself Pearl. Enough of these stupid games."

The flames paused in mid flicker in a small circle around them and then dove into the fire, going straight through the pilots without burning a hair on their bodies. It landed in the fire they had built which rose up higher and higher and slowly began to take on the form of another young girl. Eventually, her metamorphosis seemed complete except for the flames still burning on her flesh. She moved one of her flaming arms up to the sky and when she brought it back down again, all of the flames went out. 

She stepped out of the ashes and after dusting herself off, she created a spark in her hand and tossed it back into the fireplace where it instantly turned into a bright blaze again. She turned to face them all, her long brown hair blowing in the breeze. Her mocha colored eyes moved over them all before coming to rest on Teardra. "So we meet again." She said softly, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "I should have known you would survive, Ice Princess."

Teardra clenched her fists at her side, her jaw taut and her eye an ice blaze. "What happened here?" Heero stepped in the middle of them.

"Some outside force shifted the colonies stability and then propelled it into the dead star. I survived only by shifting into my flame form and waiting for the destruction to end. Everyone and everything was destroyed so I just burnt the land so someone can rebuild this place eventually."

"She's lying." Teardra declared, "It's more then that. She knows more then what she's telling us." She started to advance on the other girl only to stop in her tracks when the other girl held up her hand. "Don't even try it." She warned, "I've beaten you before and I won't hesitate to do it again."

Teardra stood where she was, her anger and frustration obvious but she was unable to do anything about it. "So?" The girl demanded

"I yield." Teardra muttered, backing away in shame, "For now." 

The flame girl nodded, as if satisfied, "Very well then. We will fight again when you feel you're ready." She turned back to the other pilots "I'm sorry for being so rude. My name is Pearl Robyn and I'm the princess of fire if you couldn't tell by now."

Heero nodded. "You realize you have to come back with us." He told her "We can't leave you here."

"I had a feeling that would happen." She replied, "We might as well leave now, I have no more business here."

"Do you have any preference on who you want to ride back with?" Wufei asked, getting right to the point

"It doesn't matter." She said, "I'll get there no matter who takes me."

"You can come with me then if you'd like." Quatre offered, "I want to get back and check on that other girl we found today."

"What happened?" Pearl asked

"A board fell on her and she's unconscious, or at least she was when we left." 

"So I take it you've changed your mind about staying here then." Heero asked

"There aren't any other survivors so there really isn't any point in our staying here." Trowa pointed out

"No one brought any flares." Wufei pointed out "How are we supposed to find out way back in the dark?"

"Don't worry about it." Pearl held out her hand only to have it engulfed in flames, lighting an area a few feet in front of her. "If we're going to go, let's leave now before it gets much later."

They packed up their small camp and with the illumined path given off by Pearl, the made their way back to the suits where she boarded Sandrock with Quatre. The six suits took off and after exiting the colony, began their trip back through space. "I got some bad vibes going between you and Teardra." Quatre said, breaking their silence.

"There has been for many years." She sighed "Unfortunately neither of us is to blame."

"Could you explain some more?" Quatre asked

"Before OZ cam e to space and began to control us, every few years, our families would bring all the element princesses together to challenge each other. They forced us to battle for the amusement of the people." She sighed "I lost to the water princess, obviously, but I beat all the others, including Teardra. She had also only lost one other girl, Sonya Rai, the light princess, so by losing to me, she lost the battle and it wounded her pride. She challenged me to a fight outside of the arena and I accepted, barely managing to beat her again. However, it was enough to turn her against me for every time after that. It hurts her even more when I have to keep reminding her of those incidents to keep from having to hurt her again. She can't bear the idea of losing again." 

"So what you're saying is the because people were forcing you to fight, they turned you girls against one another."

"That's pretty much it." She nodded

"That's sad." Quatre remarked, "Did that happen to all the girls?"

"Not all." She replied, "The compatible elements got along very well. Iris Theresa and Orchide Christine, the air and water princesses found a love between each other. Also, Sonya and Zirconia Ellen, the princesses of light and lighting were like this." She crossed two of her fingers together

"I see." Quatre nodded "But what goes with fire?"

She smiled sadly, "Only light and only to a very small extent." She sighed quietly, "I was the lonely one out of the seven of us."

"And Teardra?" Quatre asked as they landed in the bay at Peacemillion.

Pearl stood up, preparing to exit the mobile suit but looked back as an afterthought. "Teardra had herself for company and that's all she wanted." 

Quatre nodded "I take it you don't really want to room with her then."

"It wouldn't be the most ideal situation." Pearl replied

"Well, there is one other empty room that we made up for whatever survivors we might find. You might have to move later but you can stay here for now." He led her through the maze of pathways before stopping and opening a door to reveal a small room with two sets of bunkbeds, each with a dresser at the foot, a closet in between, and another small storage closet adjacent to the door. "The bathroom is right across the hall and if you need anything else, just let one of us know. I'm going to go and check on that other girl."

"Does she have a name?" Pearl asked, "You keep calling her 'that girl'."

"She had on an ID bracelet with the name Calisia Rose written on it but the only problem is that we don't know whether the bracelet is really hers."

"Amnesia?" Pearl guessed

"The medics think that it could be a possibility. She took a heavy blow to the head before we brought her here."

"You better go check on her then." Pearl said "Make sure you let me know how she is." 

"I'll do that." He promised before turning and walking down to the medical bay. He saw one of the head doctors and hurried over to him "How is she doing?" He asked anxiously

The doctor looked up and smiled sadly "She's in a stable condition physically with a broken ankle, some cuts and bruises, but as we feared, she has a case of psychogenic amnesia." He shut his notebook and stood up, "I've got some research to do. She woke up about an hour ago and she's terrified. If you have a few minutes, go on in and visit with her. She could really use a friend."

Quatre nodded and walked through the door to be greeted by a pair of frightened midnight blue eyes.

"How are you doing?" Quatre asked gently, not making any other move toward her.

"Who are you?" She demanded, "Where am I? What happened to me?" The fear returned to her eyes "Who am I?"

"Hold on." Quatre held up his hands "Do you mind if I sit down?"

"As long as you'll actually tell me something." She replied "I'm sick of these doctors with their professional mumble-jumble who just sit there and talk about you as if you're some kind of inanimate object."

Quatre sat in the hard seat on the left side of her bed. "My name is Quatre Raberba Winner." He started "I'm a Gundam pilot and you're in our home ship, Peacemillion. Your home colony was bombed by OZ, you survived and we brought you back here."

Her eyes narrowed "You didn't answer my last question." She reminded him

"I know that." He replied, "We don't know much of anything about you and since your memory is gone temporarily, we aren't going to know any concrete facts. You had an ID bracelet on when we found you with the name Calisia Rose engraved on it. Does that ring a bell?"

She thought for a moment, "It sounds right." She said, "But what else do you know? You said you didn't know much so there has to be something else you're not telling me."

"Hold on." Quatre smiled, "We'll get to it. The main point I need you to understand right now is that I can't let you know too much. If I just start feeding you information, you'll just absorb is like a sponge and you won't make any attempt to cure yourself and that's what you need to do. Not like we know much about you to begin with." He added, knowing what would have come next.

She sighed, a tear forming at the corner of her eye. "Do you know anything else?" She pleaded

Quatre hesitated for a moment but then nodded. "Hai, when we found you, you were in this large warehouse. It seemed to be the base for some kind of underground mercenary group. The suspicion was furthered when we got a good look at your clothes. It seemed to be the kind of uniform that would have been worn by a mercenary. It's looking like you were going to be in a revolution of some sort but we can't be positive and we don't want to assume anything right now."

"I can't remember." She said, her voice shaking, "I'm really sorry but I can't. I wish I could but..." She sighed softly again

"Easy." Quatre soothed, "I'm going to go get my friend Trowa to come in here and talk with you. He had amnesia once and he should be able to help you more then I can right now." He got up to leave but then turned to look back over at her. "Once we're able to move you from this wing of the ship, we'll have to put you in a room with some of the other girls here. If anyone tries to give you a hard time about anything, you come to me and I'll make sure that they stop. I don't want you to have to worry about anything other then getting better and getting your memory back."

"Thank you." She replied, "But I'm pretty sure I'll be okay."

"I'm going to watch out for you anyways." He said, "You could always use a friend in these times."

She didn't say anything for a moment and then nodded, "Thanks Quatre." She said softly

He smiled at her "Trowa will come by in a little while." He promised before exiting and walking away.

He walked back to the lounge where the rest of the pilots and Pearl were sitting around talking. Quatre stepped into the room and waited for Wufei to finish speaking. Pearl spotted him standing there "How is she?" She asked when Wufei paused

"Scared." He replied, "The same way anyone else would be if they were in her situation." He looked over at Trowa who was sitting in a chair in a corner. "Do you think you could go talk with her for awhile? You know what she's going through right now and you'd be able to comfort her more then I would."

"What's her name again?" Trowa asked, standing up

"Calisia." Quatre replied. The taller boy nodded and left the room.

"I'm going to go see the progress on that new Gundam." Heero spoke up suddenly and left before anyone could say anything else. The group on the ship was getting to be too close, too much like that family he never had. It made him wary and very uncomfortable. He didn't need them to find out that he was very insecure in situations like that. It was best if people left him to himself and he could ignore him but then all these new people came in, breaking the barriers he had put up. He couldn't let that happen. There was nothing left to him thanks to Doctor J and the others. They made sure he would never be able to live a normal life and he truly hated them for it. 

He entered the code into the lock on the door and walked into the dimly lit room. He saw the workers scurrying around through the large window working on the suit and Doctor J was lying on the control panel. Heero smirked and went to wake the elderly doctor up. "Dr. J?" Heero asked, shaking the doctors shoulder. He drew his hand back quickly when he felt the cool clammy feel of the doctors skin. Doctor J still didn't stir. 


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

  
  


Heero stared in shock at the lifeless body of Doctor J. The seemingly immortal man that had stolen his childhood away from him was no more. "About time." Heero muttered, feeling absolutely no regret for the loss of the man who had tried to wring all of his humanity out of him. Heero moved the body away from the panel and called up the information he wanted on the new Gundam. "It's only 70% complete." He noticed grimly, "Hopefully Professor B has the mind to finish it on his own. He scanned down the page until a bold line caught his eye. "Gundam Eternity." He read out loud before looking up at the unfinished suit. The multi-colored suit gleamed with new paint and parts. It was slightly smaller then the Wing Zero in size and seemed much more narrow, both factors seeming to give it a quick agile look. The coloring was mainly black and blue, making it ideal for fighting in the darkness of space. A strange blue light seemed to glow from within the eyes, making it seem like the suit had a life of its own and it was only waiting for the construction workers to help it live fully. Heero lifted his chin and looked it over, even more critically then before. Satisfied, he nodded. "We'll see how long you last." He commented before printing out the information and leaving the work area, not even bothering to do anything with the body still slumped over in the rolling chair.

He passed by the medical bay and after hesitating for a moment, walked into the room where Trowa was talking with a young dark haired, blue eyed girl.

Trowa looked up and caught his eye. "Calisia, this is Heero. He's another one of the Gundam pilots."

"Doctor J is dead." Heero said monotonely "I just found his body in the control room connected to the construction bay for that new Gundam."

"That's too bad." Trowa replied "We really could have used his mind to finish it."

Calisia looked shocked "Don't you care about the man at all or were you just using him? That's not respectful at all."

"You don't know what he tried to do to all of us." Trowa said softly "If he had his way the first time around, you wouldn't be here right now. He objected to us trying to save people left on the colony and in fact...he tried to curb us into little killing machines from the very beginning. Calisia, it may not seem nice to you but the world is probably a lot better off with this man gone."

"I'm sorry." She said, "I didn't know."

"How are you feeling?" Heero asked her 

"Physically they tell me I'll be fine." She replied softly, "Mentally and emotionally, I might as well be dead."

Trowa reached over to rest his hand on her shoulder. "Don't say that." He reprimanded gently, "It's just going to take some time and some TLC."

"I know," She looked down, "I just wish..."

"If wishes were horses then beggars would ride." Heero quoted, "Be thankful you're even alive right now. You lucked out compared to the rest of your colony."

She looked up to meet his cold gaze and then looked back down again. "You're right." She mumbled, still looking down at the blanket "I'm not thinking about what could have happened."

"Don't bother with the what ifs." Trowa advised "Just concentrate on what is right now. You don't need to put yourself under anymore stress."

Quatre's face popped up on the video screen that was fixed in the corner of the room. "Heero, Trowa, Treize Kushranada has transmitted a message to us and you really need to be here for him to say what he wants to say."

"We'll be right there." Heero replied, gesturing for Trowa to leave the room with him. "Tell him we're on our way."

"I'll come back later when we get back. I have a feeling we're going to have to leave on another mission soon. We'll talk more if you're awake. Don't wait up intentionally, you do need your rest."

"I understand." Calisia replied, settling back against her pillow. "I am a little tired."

"Then I'll see you tomorrow." Trowa promised, "I'm sure Quatre will stop by as well."

"I'll be waiting." She said, her eyes closing as the drugs the medics had given her began to kick in.

Heero nodded at Trowa and the two of them quickly exited the room to make their way to the dinning bay where the main communication center was located. "Has he said anything yet?" Heero asked

"Only that he was going to wait for all six of us to be in attendance." Wufei replied, "He really wanted us all to be here to hear this."

"Well, we're here now so tell him to say what we wants." Heero snapped back

"They're here." Quatre said, hitting the button to reopen the link. "Say what you feel you have to say."

The elegant face of an aristocratic young man appeared on the screen. After pausing for a moment to make eye contact with each of the pilots, Treize Kushranada began to speak. "Gundam pilots, we members of the OZ organization have made the decision to destroy the connected colonies W-09 and A-26. Communication has already been made impossible so you cannot issue an evacuation warning and there is no way for the people to escape the colonies. However, it is becoming rather dull just to destroy a colony by pushing a button. We need a little amusement so we concocted a little game we'd like to play with you. The clock is set for a half hour and it will begin to tick away as soon as I end this transmission. We're just wondering if that Gundam suits have the capability to exceed their own limits so they can get to the colony with enough time for you to prevent the destruction of those two colonies." A small smirk graced the corners of his mouth, "Go forth Gundam pilots, this is a race against time." The link closed leaving them all standing in shock. 

"Let's move." Heero commanded, rushing out to the mecha bay

"Shouldn't we let Doctor J know what's going on?" Quatre asked, trying to keep up with Heero's rapid pace.

"He's dead." Heero shot back

"What do you mean?" Duo asked, stopping in his tracks for a moment before having to start moving again to catch up to the rest of them.

"He's no longer living. He's no longer a menace in our lives." Heero replied shortly "Let the medics take care of it. That's what they're here for. It's no longer a concern of ours. We have bigger things to worry about. Hurry up, we need to leave now, we don't have time for any last minute adjustments."

Duo broke out into a run catching up to the rest of them just as they rushed out to their suits. It was the fastest they had ever managed to get moving. But then again, up until that point, there hadn't been any reason to hurry like this."

As they flew out of the bay, Heero taped into the communication system of Peacemillion "Professor B, could you have the mechanics ready to repair the engines of the suits when we get back? We're going to have the damage them to get to the colony in time."

"Roger that." The reply came "They'll be ready and waiting."

Heero nodded to himself and then switched to the communication lines between the Gundams. "Throw all the power you can into the speed drives. Professor B said not to worry about the damage, they can be repaired later on when we're not in such a rush."

"Well that solves one problem at least." Duo smiled wickedly and threw a few levers up to the top.

"We still have some hope left then." Quatre smiled as Sandrock began to pick up speed

"Don't count on it." Wufei brought up the charts of the surrounding area. "You might want to put most of your power back into your weapons. They didn't want to give us a honest chance. They just wanted to see the true capability of our suits."

"Damn them." Heero swore when he saw the swarms of mobile dolls surrounding them.

"There's too many of them." Trowa commented "We'll never make it through in time."

"Do you think that four of us would be able to contain the suits so Heero could get into the colony to end the instability?" Quatre asked

"It's not possible right now." Heero replied "We'll have to see how this progresses."

"I was beginning to wonder when they were going to let me have any more fun." Duo's eyes lit up as he sliced six of the suits in half with the double bladed scythe and flying off as they exploded.

"Now this is what the Gundams were built for." Wufei shouted as he thrust out the two dragon fangs, Altron, had been named for.

"We have seven minutes left before they bomb the colonies!." Quatre said "Heero would need a minute at the very least to get in there and stop it since he knows where the controls are and how to fix them."

"So that gives us about six to clear out as many of these guys as we can." Trowa said, unloading a few rounds of ammo on the enemy suits.

"What's that?" Teardra asked, gazing off into the distance after firing a shot from her beam cannon.

"Reinforcements." Heero groaned "They just wanted to make us think that we could do something. They knew we wouldn't be able to."

"We can't give up yet!" Quatre yelled, slicing two more suits in half

"At the very least, we can get rid of part of their army." Wufei agreed, taking out a few more with the thermal flames on one dragon.

"Don't ever try to double cross the God of Death." Duo growled, sending his thermal blade into a random suit in front of him

"They will have to suffer for this." Trowa agreed, whipping out the small sword on Heavyarms lower right arm and spinning through a crowd of suits, breaking them apart.

"Omae o korosu." Heero added in, flying around with the thermal whip triggering explosions on every suit it came in contact with.

"Heero, there are only three minutes left." Quatre spoke up again "If you're going to try to stop the explosion, you're going to have to go now!"

"There are still too many suits." He objected

"Get going!" Duo ordered "We'll be fine."

"Mission accepted." Was the only reply as the Epyon took off through the cloud of suits.

"He's not going to make it!" Teardra shouted "The suits have begun to assemble around the colony. They're blocking him from getting in!"

"Kisama." Wufei cursed, slicing a few more suits apart. "Treize, I'm going to get you for this."

"There's an outside transmission coming in." Quatre noticed, opening the line.

Treize's face once again appeared on the screen "Hurry Gundams." He said, his voice holding a mocking tone "Only a minute and a half left. Is it enough time? Why are you taking so long? A few distractions like this shouldn't have kept you too long. Only a minute left now. Will Heero be able to make it on time or this the last minute these people have to live? Do they realize this is their last minute in this life? What do you think is running through their minds right now? Life really is priceless. Unfortunately for these people, the price is about to be paid." He smiled one more time and then line went dead. Seconds later, just as Heero broke through the defensive line, the colonies were engulfed in flames.

"No!" Quatre yelled, flying right towards the burning colony "We've got to do something!"

Heavyarms flew in front of him to block his way "There isn't anything we can do." Trowa said, making sure the younger boy didn't make a suicide attempt.

"But Trowa..." Quatre protested, his voice shaking as he kept his tears inside. "Those poor people."

"There's no point in dying here." Trowa replied gently "We'll avenge these people someday. OZ is going to pay for all the pain and suffering they have caused this universe."

"Treize, you went too far this time." Wufei slammed his fist down on the control panel, the force nearly cracking it.

"The flames are dying down." Duo noticed glumly "We'll be able to go in and start searching for survivors soon."

"They should have all survived." Heero said after bringing up some data "We still had about 30 seconds left. They bombed it as soon as I got through because they knew that I still had enough time."

"Those bastards don't deserve a quick death." Duo spoke up

"I'm going to make them all suffer for what they've done." Teardra sword, her voice shaking as her tears rolled down her face, ever as she tried to force them back.

They all watched as the last flames slowly flickered away. "Let's go see what's left." Heero said, putting the Epyon back into motion, moving around the now motionless mobile suits.~*~*~*~*~*~

At the Lunar Base, on the other side of the galaxy, the normally regal Treize Kushranada was sitting slumped over, his hands and legs bound to the chair he was sitting in. "Very well done." A woman's voice with a strong Spanish accent cam from the back of the room where she was bathed in shadows. "I knew there was a reason for me to keep you around. You truly are the perfecto actor." A cold smile spread across her blood red lips. "OZ has had their time in the spotlight and I think it's about time to bring in a new era."

Treize just sat there, the once proud man reduced to a slouching captive with no will to continue living. "I never quite expected to go out like this." He said, smiling sadly "I always expected to be assassinated but not after being forced to destroy the only place my heart has ever taken root. I truly do love outer space. The immensity of this space cannot be comprehended by the normal human mind." He turned his head to glare at her "I guess there is some satisfaction in knowing the Gundam pilots will most certainly catch on. I won't be around to witness it, but I am sure that they will find a way to defeat you."

"Caiete!" The woman ordered, striking him across the face, the palm of her hand leaving his richly tanned skin tinted pink. "I have heard quite enough from you. Cyan, Safire, escort Mr. Kushranada back to his quarters, por favor."

Two men, her two main guards jumped up and roughly grabbed Treize and began to shove him down to the isolation area that had become his room. They pushed him into the cell along with the five other prisoners, including the badly wounded Lady Une.

Treize didn't speak to any of them and they didn't speak to him. It was a mutual silence that they all needed to keep their sanity. He made his way to the far back corner and dropped to the floor, his eyes gazing up into the darkness. "Gundams." He whispered, "Please forgive me. I can offer you no help. Please find a way to fight and live through the coming age of madness. You are the only ones who can save the universe I love." A lone tear fell from his eye and landed with a soft plink on the concrete floor.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The six pilots made their way through the piles of smoldering debris. "We have two colonies to check out." Heero reminded them, "They're connected by a canal that should be in the middle."

"It reminds me of Pearl's colony." Quatre said "There isn't anything left here. Most of the buildings were made primarily of lumber and only a few families thought ahead enough to have them built with brick. They spent most of the colonies money and resources building and maintaining that canal."

"He's right." Teardra agreed reluctantly "We're going to have to check out the other colony. We couldn't see it as well from our positions at the time. It might not have been hit as badly."

"It's highly doubtful but me might as well check it out." Wufei grunted

They slowly walked around and over the cooling embers, until they found themselves standing at the edge of an enormous waterway. ON the other bank, they could barely make out the disappearing smoke. "Maybe there still is a chance for some of these people." Trowa admitted "It doesn't look as back from over here."

"The only question is, how do we get over there?" Duo asked, looking around "I don't see any boats or anything."

"Then we'll have to swim." Heero shrugged, taking off her ever present tank-top and let it fall to the ground, setting his lap-top on top of it. "I suggest you take off anything you don't want to lose."

"Are you sure you want to try to swim that?" Quatre asked, taking off his vest, shirt, and gold watch "The water looks kind of choppy."

Wufei eyed the waves suspiciously "How can there be waves with no wind?" He asked

"I was just wondering that myself." Trowa agreed "Is there a magnetic field built in there to help the water circulate?"

"Not that I was aware of." Teardra studied the waves more carefully as well.

"Tidal wave!" Duo yelled out s the waves formed to nearly impossible heights.

Teardra jerked her head up suddenly as a thought came to her "Heero, which colonies are these again?"

"A-26 and W-09." He replied, watching the huge wave in amazement.

"It's not real." Teardra announced "Okay Orchide, Iris, stop it now!"

The wave seemed to hesitate and then began to shrink down in size as it approached the shore. When it finally crashed onto the ground in front of them, a girl with short auburn hair and twinkling aquamarine eyes tumbled out of the water and into the light. Moments later, another girl, this one shorter with white-blonde hair and brown eyes formed in a small cyclone of air. "Hi Teardra." She said with another big smile "What are you doing here?"

"That's not relevant right now." Teardra glared at the two younger looking girls.

"What happened here?" The first girl asked, looking around in shock.

"Your colonies were just destroyed!" Wufei exclaimed "How could you not have noticed?"

"They're gone?" The girl asked "That's too bad."

The second girl shrugged "I guess we were too busy playing to really notice."

"I can't believe this!" Wufei threw his hands into the air "Baka onnas."

"Do you think you two could do us a favor?" Teardra jumped back in "I mean, do you two think you could do something seriously for once in your lives?"

"What do you mean?" They asked in unison

"Iris, could you use that one power that allows you to be everywhere where there is air at the same time? Just find out if there are any living people left. It would save us a lot of time."

The second girl nodded and almost immediately made her body dissolve into the air. "I take it she's the air princess?" Quatre remarked

"Iris Tereesa." Teardra said nodded at the remaining girl "That's Orchide Christine, the water princess."

"Pleased to meet you all." Orchide said with another smile as Iris reappeared in front of them.

"There are two on this colony and one over there." She reported "A baby, a little boy, and a woman who looks like she's in her thirties."

"I'll go over there." Heero said, gesturing towards the other colony. "I'll go get Epyon on meet you back here in about an hour hopefully."

"Why don't you just use our robot thingy?" Orchide suggested "It can fly and go through water. Besides, we keep it right over there."

"I'll go get it." Iris volunteered, running off to a nearly destroyed building a few blocks down. A few minutes later, Heero's original mobile suit, the Wing Gundam rose up and began moving towards them.

"Where did you get that?" Heero demanded, his eyes wide as it stopped in front of them, allowing Iris to hop down.

"Some people from our colonies found the remains floating around and they brought it back here and fixed it up for us. We've just mainly been using it to help the construction of the canal and for flying around space whenever we got bored." Iris looked up at it "We had the workers install another seat in the cockpit so we could pilot it at the same time."

"You know how to pilot it?" Duo asked in complete disbelief.

"It wasn't like it was hard to figure out." Iris replied with a shrug

"Never mind." Heero cut in "We'll talk about it later. Now where is the survivor on that other colony?"

"He's in the house three down form the canal on the left. He's not crying or anything but he's making enough noise so that you shouldn't have a problem finding him."

"Is it the baby?" Heero asked wearily

"No, the baby is over on this colony. The little boy is the one you're going to find."

"Heero, do you want me to go with you?" Quatre asked

"No, you go find that baby but don't even think about bringing Satunia a new little brother or sister." He said sternly

"Alright." Quatre replied

"I mean it Quatre." Heero said, giving him a hard glare before climbing into the cockpit of the 01 and flying over to the other side.

"Orchide, do you know where Tiola Monsin lives?"

"Yeah."

"It's about five houses to the left of that house."

"Alright." Orchide turned to leave and then turned back again quickly "What about the woman?"

"She's right across the street, you'll find her easily. She's just lying on her lawn crying."

"Okay." Orchide turned and left, followed by Quatre and Duo. "How did you guys manage to meet up with Teardra anyways?" She asked, still walking at a rapid pace.

"It's kind of a long story." Quatre said "I guess the shortest version of it would be that ever since OZ started to blow up these colonies, we've been going around trying to find survivors. Teardra's home colony was bombed and instead of taking her to the Earth like we had originally planned, we discovered that she had a talent for piloting a Gundam. She's been with us ever since."

"She could be really fun to be around if she'd only lighten up." Orchide looked further down the street and then turned right onto a different one.

"Wow." Duo sighed "Beautiful and laid-back."

"Don't get your hopes up." Orchide replied "You're not my type."

"What do you mean?" Duo looked somewhat hurt.

"I'm not available and even if I was, you wouldn't have a chance."

"Whoever your boyfriend is, I can guarantee that I'm ten times the guy he is."

"I don't have a boyfriend silly." Orchide giggled "I have a girlfriend."

"Dammit." Duo swore, "I thought Teardra said that the rest of these girls weren't lesbians like her."

"Teardra's a lesbian?" Orchide looked at him in shock "Are you sure about that?"

"Duo, Teardra never said one way or the other about the other girls." Quatre spoke up "She just kept trying to get the idea through your thick head that she wasn't."

"You mean she's straight!" Duo jumped around happily, "I still have a chance!"

"Here we are." Orchide stopped in front of one of the few brick buildings on the colony "There is definately something crying in there. Quatre, why don't you go find the baby and Duo and I can go help that other woman. It looks like something is wrong with her leg."

Quatre pushed aside some fallen beams and made his way through the dusty dimness. "Come on baby." He murmured "Just keep crying and we'll get you out of here."

The wails died down for a moment but then came back stronger then ever. "That's it." Quatre picked his way to the back of the building and started pushing aside more boards to reveal a partially broken crib with a small baby lying in it. "There you are!" Quatre said, picking him up "You don't seem hurt, just a little bit scared." The baby boy stopped crying and looked up at Quatre with big, sullen, dark blue eyes. "You look just like Heero." Quatre noticed with a smile "Or at least close to what he must have looked like as a baby. Same brown hair and everything."

"Quatre, did you find it?" Duo asked "Orchide and I have the other person waiting outside. Her ankle is sprained so could you hurry up?"

"I've got him." Quatre replied "Just give me a few minutes to get him out. I don't want to have to drop him." He began to make his way over the more sturdy pieces of concrete and plaster until the two of them were standing out in the light again.

"Reheo!" The woman exclaimed through her tears "Thank God!"

"You know him?" Duo asked, helping her move over so she could take him from Quatre

"Yes, he's my nephew." She replied, kissing his forehead and hugging him to her.

"At least one good thing was left in this destruction." Quatre smiled as they began to walk back to the canal.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Come on kid." Heero muttered, looking around "Where are you?" A loud crash at the rear of the building caught his attention. "Gotcha." He smirked before taking off to run around back.

Instead of finding the orphaned boy he was looking for, Heero stood looking up at a thin white cat balancing on a shelf. It had knocked over a paint can while pacing back and forth, trying to find a safe way down. It meowed anxiously from its precarious perch and gazed at him with hopeful topaz eyes.

Heero just stood looking at it for a moment, a memory of a dead puppy flashing through his mind. "I can't believe I'm doing this." He muttered, climbing up to rescue the animal. "I've been hanging around Quatre for way too long." He walked back to the Gundam still muttering to himself under his breath. The cat, however, purred loudly, rubbing its head against the bottom of his chin. "Don't you dare push anything." He warned, shutting the hatch behind him. "I'm getting way too soft. I just hope that one of those girls would want a pet. At the very least, I'm sure Satunia would like it." Another crash, this time from inside a broken down shed caught his attention again. Once again, he investigated, this time to discover a small, dirty, little boy who looked like he couldn't be any older then five, rummaging around in the potato bin, taking big, hungry bites out of the two he held in his hands.

Heero took a step closer and the boy spun around and glared at him with his mouth still full. He swallowed and wiped off the corner of his mouth. "What are you doing here?" He demanded

"I'm taking you somewhere where you'll be safe." Heero replied "You can't stay here."

"Wanna bet?" The boy asked "Just leave me alone. You're probably one of the stupid people causing these wars."

"What if I told you I'm with the people trying to stop these wars from happening?" Heero asked

The boy shook his head "I'd call your bluff. Even if you were trying to stop these wars, then you're still fighting and you're just hurting more people."

Heero just looked at him for a second. "I'm taking you back with us." He finally said, at a loss for any other words "You can stay at the shelter on the Earth and live there."

"I'm not leaving!" The boy shouted

Heero sighed "What's your name, kid?"

"Don't got one." He replied, looking down for a minute and then glaring back up with flames in his eyes. "I don't see what business it is of yours anyways."

Heero just sighed again and then stalked over and lifted the boy up effortlessly. "Lemme go!" The boy ordered, his limbs flailing out: kicking, punching, and scratching. Heero just took the blows, they didn't hurt at all, the kid was too scrawny to inflict any pain onto the perfect soldier. He lifted them both up to the cockpit, the boy still protesting angrily. Heero set him on the floor and closed the hatch behind them. "Lemme out of here!" The boy yelled "I'm not going with you!"

"I'm going to let Duo take care of you." Heero muttered "The two of you could be brothers, you talk so much."

"I don't got no brothers." The boy protested, "If I did, you can bet they wouldn't let you take me like this."

"If you had any, they'd probably be dead." Heero retorted "Just sit still so I can get us out of here. You don't have a say in the matter."

The boy slumped down as Heero took off slowly, so not to send the boy or the cat flying around the cockpit. The cat hopped up onto his lap and after turning around a few times, she laid down, purring contentedly. "Finally." Heero muttered, landing on the opposite shore and noticing that everyone else was back already. Groping around the floor, he found an old jacket which he pulled on and zipped the cat into, letter her head poke out the neck. The boy, he lifted up again and then lowered all of them to the ground.

"Happy now?" The small boy demanded "Don't even think you're going to get me back into that thing."

Heero glared at Duo "You take care of him now. If either of you ever shut up long enough to bond, I'm sure you'd get along just fine."

Before Duo could step in, however, the woman knelt next to him on her good leg. "Are you alright?" She asked, running a hand through his unruly sandy colored hair.

He looked up at her as if he was seeing an angel "I don't wanna leave." He protested, but more weakly this time.

"Would you please go to keep me company?" She asked, 'I don't want to be all alone and Reheo isn't going to be very good company for a few years."

The boy considered "Only if you promise that you'll be my mama."

"Of course I will." She promised "Now could you tell me what your name is?"

"Don't got one." He replied sullenly

"Well then, we'll have to give you one." She decided and then looked at Heero, "Who did you say he reminded you of?"

"Duo." Heero replied with a smirk

"How about the name Trio?" She suggested 

"Hold on for a minute." Duo jumped in "I have a better idea. Before the Maxwell Church took me in, I was a war orphan just like you. There was another orphan, Solo, who took me under his wing and helped me to survive. He was an amazing kid and if he hadn't died of a virus when we were still young, I know he would have been something great. How about you take his name and show this universe what you're made of."

The boy smiled, dimples showing on each cheek. "Alright, from now on, you've got to call me Solo."

"Solo Numaret." The woman smiled down at him and took his small hand in hers.

"Heero, I just got a message from Professor B." Trowa shut the laptop. "He wanted to let us know that there is one airport open on Earth and we can start taking people down there again."

"So that means that these five, Calisia, and Pearl can all get sent down there to the shelter." He noted.

"Not Pearl." Teardra said "She and I have a score to settle and getting rid of her like that would be too easy. It would be the cowards way out."

"I don't want Calisia to go yet either." Quatre said thoughtfully "She's getting to know us and we're all she does know. it might be too much to send her somewhere else without any memories or knowledge of where she came from."

"It probably would be better to keep her with us until her amnesia wears off." Trowa agreed "After that we'll re-evaluate the situation again."

"So it's just going to be these five?" Heero asked

"Why not keep those girls around?" Wufei asked "They know how to pilot a Gundam and they could come in handy."

"We'd love to stay!" Iris exclaimed "You're going to have to help us figure out the weapon things though. We didn't' bother learning how to use them because we didn't have any reason to."

"We'll test them when we get back." Heero decided "I also want to put Pearl through it. We'll have an extra suit when the new Gundam is finished and I think it's something special with these elemental powers that goes hand in hand with the piloting instincts."

"So what do you want us to do?" Teardra asked

"Trowa, you take the woman and the baby, Duo, you can take Solo. Go the old Singapore base. It's ben secretly reopened so try to keep the power down. From there, travel underwater to the shelter in the Sanc Kingdom." He looked around at everyone else "The rest of us will go back to Peacemillion. Got it? Good, let's get going." They climbed into their various suits and took off in their various directions.

When the suits arrived back at Peacemillion, Quatre immediately took off to check on Calisia, leaving Teardra to decide what to do with the two girls. "Which room would you prefer?" She asked, opening up the two doors for them to peer into, praying that they wouldn't choose....

"This one." The two of them decided in unison, moving into the room that up until then, she had been in by herself.

"Why does that just figure?" She moaned, before standing up straighter "Just go straight down the hall and go into the testing room. Heero should be ready for you by now." The two of them dropped their small bags on their new beds and took off down the hall hand in hand, giggling. Teardra moved into the room and flopped down onto her bed. "Why me?" She cried into the pillow "God, why me?"


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

(3 weeks later)

  
  


"You've got to be faster then that." Heero spoke to Iris and Orchide from inside the recently completed Eternity Gundam. He, the tow of them, Pearl, and Teardra had been out training all morning. Just as he had expected, Pearl had the beginnings of an amazing pilot. Her score on the zero system was even higher then Teardra's, a fact that didn't make the Ice Princess very happy.

"Okay Pearl." Heero turned to the Epyon suit that was flying around rapidly over his head.

"I'm ready." She replied. Heero smirked and started an all out attack on her. She managed to dodge every attempted blow and then come back with a stream of laser beams that the flashing red tail, that if he had been in anything weaker then a Gundam, would have destroyed him. He grinned, finally there was someone worth training with. Teardra was good but she was too unpredictable and she got distracted much too easily. The other two girls were just too immature and too dense to comprehend everything that he was telling them. Pearl was just an all around amazing fighter, she knew plenty of different strategies and she knew what she was doing in her suit. Besides all that, she always kept a clear mind and tired to stay a step ahead of her opponent, a skill that very few pilots had been able to master.

Their suits clashed a few more times before their battle once again ended in a draw. "That's enough for today." Heero told them "let's go back inside so you can get something to eat."

"Okay." Iris said in a singsong voice before the 01 and Wing Zero took off to the base.

"How am I doing?" Pearl asked him, opening up a private line between the two suits.

"Better then the other three." Heero replied, not bothering to hide any of the facts "You didn't get the score you did on the zero system test because of nothing. You don't just have the piloting skills that the other three have, you have a mindset that compliments them and helps to increase your abilities."

"At least it wasn't a glitch in the machine like I originally thought." She joked

Heero just looked at her. Something inside of him wanted to joke back, to get to know her better. Unfortunately, the part of him that had been curbed to resist emotions was still there and it was still very evident in his personality. "Let's get going." He said finally, flying off back to Peacemillion.

"That was kind of strange." Pearl muttered before following him

Quatre sat by Calisia's bed, freeing her ankle from its sling. "We're going to have to put you in with Pearl." He said with an apologetic smile "She'll be a lot better with you in this condition. I would have you go with Iris and Orchide only Teardra, well, she really doesn't even want you to be here."

"Is she the blonde one?" Calisia asked

"Yeah. She's been in here to see you?"

"Once. She wasn't really pleasant to be around."

"That's Teardra for you, She doesn't like you if you're weaker then she is but if you're stronger, she'll loathe everything about you." He handed her the crutches the doctor had given her to use "Do you need any help?"

She swung herself out of the bed and tried moving around for the first time in weeks. "I should be okay if you'll get the doors for me."

"Sure thing." Quatre hit the button on the door and bowed down with a smile "Ladies first."

Calisia smiled back "Thanks." She said before hobbling out and into the hallway. Quatre led her through the maze of corridors

"Oh yeah, by the way, we have something to keep you busy if you want her." He opened the door to the room and helped her over to the single bed against the right wall of the room.

"What are you talking about?" She asked

Quatre scooped the white cat off her cushion on the floor and set her in Calisia's lap. "She's precious." She said, stroking the cat's silky fur "What's her name?"

"We've just been calling her Nanashi for the past few weeks because if you didn't want her then we were going to get rid of her and it's much easier to get rid of an animal that you haven't named."

"But I thought you said you had been calling her Nanashi." She protested

"It just means no name." Quatre tickled the cat's chin "She seems to know that because she won't come when you call her that."

"Why didn't you give her to your daughter?"

"Katya is allergic to cats so that kind of took out that possibility."

"I think I'm going to call you Topaz." She said after a minute and then looking up at Quatre "Just look at the color of her eyes."

"I take it you want to keep her." Quatre asked

"Of course." Calisia replied, hugging the cat to her

"I had a feeling you would." He replied, sitting down next to her "At the very least she should be good company for you."

"Quatre?" Katya called from the other side of the door "There's someone here who wants to see her daddy and she doesn't want to wait."

"Come on in sweetie." He called back

Katya opened the door and led in the young girl "Daddy!" She cried running into his arms

"Achoo!" Katya sneezed, grabbing some tissues and leaving the room "Make sure she washes her hands if she touches that cat." She warned

"Satunia, this is Calisia." He sat her down on his lap "She's going to take care of the kitty from now on."

"Kitty." Satunia repeated, reaching a hand out to it. She studied Calisia intently for a minute before letting her eyes rest on her cast. "Boo-boo."

"Big boo-boo." Calisia replied with a smile. Satunia looked up at her again before focusing her attention back on the cat. 

"Babies are so interesting." Quatre said, looking at her playing with Topaz "They act so curiously sometimes. The way they look at you, it makes you wonder if they can really understand what you're saying or not. I mean, just because they aren't developed enough to communicate back, does that have to mean that their brains can't comprehend what we're saying. Do you understand where I'm coming from?"

Calisia stared off into space, her eyes locked on a certain spot on the wall "She can understand." She said softly "She doesn't know all the words that you use but she can understand most of it. Most babies can't though. She's special."

"How do you know that?" Quatre asked in complete disbelief

Calisia shook her head; trying to clear her mind "I have no clue." She replied, rubbing the back of her head "As soon as you asked that, it was like someone took over my thoughts to tell me the answer."

"That's really odd." He remarked, "Has it ever happened before?"

"A few times, back in the medical bay. I could hear people asking each other questions outside of my room and I just always knew the answers but I wasn't about to say anything."

Satunia crawled back over to where the two of them were sitting. "Papa, up!" She ordered, holding her arms out to him until he picked her up and set her on the bed between the two of them.

"Do you think she seems happy here?" He asked

"I haven't been around the two of you together much but from what I've seen, she does. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know." Quatre shrugged "I'm doing the best job I can and I think I'm doing a decent job balancing piloting with being a father but I'm not always here for her when she needs it. I just wonder if she knows that I'm doing the best job that I can right now."

"She knows." Calisia's eyes glazed over once again "She misses you whenever you're gone but she knows that you'll always come back to her."

"You're really starting to freak me out." Quatre said, eyeing her wearily "What's going on?"

"I don't know exactly." She said, shaking her head again "It's almost like I can read minds to answer questions, whether I want to hear the answers or not."

"Okay, let's do a little test." Quatre moved forward to look her in the eyes "Tell me what I'm thinking now."

Calisia concentrated for a moment and then shook her head "I don't know. You never asked a question."

"Okay, I'm going to think about the same thing and just ask you a different way. What am I thinking?"

Calisia got the same dazed look in her eyes "You're thinking about the Eternity Gundam." She said slowly "How advanced it is and how it really does have the chance to stop anymore stupid battles from occurring."

"That's right." Quatre said in amazement "I can't believe how ironic this is. You have amnesia but you still have the power to read minds."

"I guess so." She shrugged, "At least now I know where all of these ideas are coming from."

"Heero is going to have to let you stay here now." Quatre smiled broadly "With a power like that, you could help us stop any revolutions before they even start."

"He was going to send me away?" She asked, looking up at Quatre in fear 

"Yes. After your ankle healed he was going to have you sent to a shelter on the Earth because you really weren't going to be any help for us in the long run. I didn't want to have to send you away but I really couldn't argue with his logic."

"Why would you want to keep me hear anyways?" She asked "I don't want to leave but I don't understand why you still want me here when all I could be is a burden. I can't even fight with this bum ankle."

"The doctors told me that the cast should be able to come off in a week or so if that makes you feel any better." He glanced down at his daughter "As for wanting to keep you here, I really can't explain it. I just have this gut instinct that I have to protect you and keep you close to me." He picked Satunia up and stood up "You better get some sleep now. Trowa will probably stop in later."

"Whatever you say." She agreed, settling down on her bed 

***

The girl wandered through the ship "I know she's here somewhere." She muttered, listening at each door. "Her ship is outside." She sighed and moved back into the shadows so she could creep back to the central boiler room where she had started.

She unscrewed the bolts, holding one of the larger vents to the wall. Lifting it away, she set it down on the floor with the screws in a small pile next to it. She hoisted herself up into the open area inside the walls and began to crawl through. "Alright Maylm." She glared down into another empty room "Where are you?"

She wandered through the vents for what seemed like hours but in reality was probably only about half of one. It seemed like she had found every other person on the ship except for the one she was looking for. She saw a girl sleeping with a cast on her ankle, another girl giving a baby a bath while sneezing into a handkerchief. There was the black haired boy she had been told about practicing the martial arts with a smaller blonde boy. Where else could they hide the princess of a rebellion?

Her ears picked up as she heard the faint voice. Yes, that was it. There was only one person in space that she knew of that still threw in the occasional traditional Spanish phrase. "Gotcha." She muttered, crawling rapidly down a different tunnel that took her to the far back end of the ship. She gazed down through the vent at the two people speaking softly in the dimly lit room. That was her, Princess Maylm Carolina Hernandez. That was the young dangerous woman in her visions. 

"Do we have an agreement?" The princess asked

"I believe so." The young man answered. "I find a way to wipe out everyone on this ship and make it look like an accident and you make me one of your partners in crime." 

"Crime is such a harsh term." Her smile was cold "Let's just say I'm helping to speed history down the road I want it to take. Now dime. Why are you so willing to destroy the Gundam pilots?" 

"Let's just say that I'm sick of them." The man grimaced "Ever since I was born, I was treated like another laborer by my father. When those pilots came around, he stopped caring about me altogether. Those pilots stole my father's affection away from me and they will pay for ruining my childhood."

"I see." She said with a from "It sounds like you're holding onto a childhood envy of them. However, whatever your purpose may be, it means nothing to me as long as the end result is still the same and they are cut out of the picture and you remain on my side."

"You have my word." The man promised "I've got the gas tanks in the locked storage closet. All I have to do is open them up and no one will wake up the next morning to suspect anything."

The girl's eyes widened. She had to get out of there and quickly. She had to make sure those pilots lived for the sake of outer space and the Earth. She turned around quickly and was about the start crawling back the way she came when one of the hair pins holding her long white hair up in a bun came loose and hit the metal vent with a loud plink.

The two voices within the room stopped suddenly. "Someone is here." The princess whispered "We have to find them now or everything will be ruined. Vamos!"

The girl breathed a sigh of relief as she made her way back to the boiler room where she found some extra uniforms for the engineers stored in a box in the corner of the room. She slipped one on, pinning up her hair under the hat and smearing some grime on her face and hands. She fixed the open vent and then sat down on the floor, calling upon her powers of prescience. "Heero Yuy." She murmured after a moment "I need to find Heero Yuy."

She stood up and adjusted her hat one more time as the door swung open. "Boy. What are you doing in here?" The princess demanded

The girl forced her hatred back "I was told that the vent in here had come loose. I came in here to fix it." She lied quickly

Princess Maylm's eyes narrowed. "Where are your tools?"

"They said I would find everything that I needed in here but as you can see, they were obviously mistaken. I did manage to fix the bolts by hand luckily."

"So you say." The princess frowned and inspected the fixings. "Bien, carry on." She turned and left the girl to breath a sigh of relief.

"I don't have very much time." She murmured, taking off through the halls. "I've got to find him now." She ran out the door and around a corner and smack into another body. "Oof." She grunted as she fell to the floor

"Are you alright?" The tall boy she had run into asked

"I'm fine." She studied him for a moment. He didn't seem like an enemy so she had to take a chance. "I need to find Heero Yuy. Do you know where I can find him?"

The boy's one visible green eye widened in amusement. "Could you tell me why you're in such a hurry to find him?"

"I can't at the moment." She replied in a whisper "In time, all will be reveled but only if I can speak to him now."

"Follow me." The boy began to lead her back to one of the living areas she had discovered earlier. "Heero." The boy said softly, making the other boys sitting at a table, typing into a laptop computer look up. "'He' needs to speak to you." The boy coughed a little and sat down, obviously wanting to here what she had to say

"Can you secure this room?" She asked, "If I'm found here, we will all be in serious danger."

The first boy walked over to the door and hit a few buttons on the keypad there. "Door is locked and the jamming field had been activated." He announced before returning to his seat.

"Who are you?" Heero demanded

"My name is Wysli Marie Sertory." She replied, relaxing a little bit "you don't know me but I do know about all of you to a certain extent."

"Isn't Wysli a girls name?" His eyes narrowed

"I am a girl." She replied, taking off the hat and letting her hair fall down "I've been getting these visions lately and they weren't very pleasant to say the very least so I started doing a little bit of research and it turns out that there is a woman of royal Spanish ancestry who is planning on taking over the universe."

"What happens to us in those visions?" The first boy asked

"You aren't in them so I'm assuming you're all dead."

"When is all of this supposed to occur?" Heero asked

"I don't know." She admitted, "All I know is that all of this was confirmed within the last hour when I found Princess Maylm talking with a young blonde man. He was planning on letting some deadly gases loose in the middle of the night to destroy all of you at once."

"What color eyes did this person have?" Heero asked

"I'm pretty sure they were green." She replied after thinking for a moment "They were either blue or green."

"It has to be Professor B." The taller boy said, "Quatre would never try to kill someone he was close to. His uchuu no kokoro would drive him insane if he even thought of it."

"So we basically have two choices." Heero noticed glumly "We either stay here, prevent the gas and risk the chance of another attack on our lives or we can leave here immediately, go to the Earth and risk endangering the people there."

"Why the Earth?" Wysli asked

"Because if what you say about this Princess is true, then space won't be safe for very long." He snapped

"We better start letting everyone else know what we're doing." The other boy said

"I better get back to my home before I get found out." Wysli said, turning to leave

Heero grabbed her arm "You're not going anywhere." He said, "For all we know, you're a spy working for her. You're going with us where we can keep an eye on you."

"Of all the ridiculous ideas." Wysli threw her hands up in the air "I risked my life trying to find you and now you're accusing me of siding with the one person I want to destroy?"

"We have no evidence that what you're saying is true." Heero replied "Trowa, you take her and tell everyone to meet in them mecha bay in an hour. I'm going to get rid of those gas tanks."

"Come with me." Trowa nodded at Wysli "We've got a lot of people to find."

Heero stalked out of the room and into the control room of the ship. He quickly scanned the area surrounding it and located a corner of another ship hidden in the darkened area of one of the screens. "They did a decent job getting her in here unnoticed. Professor B didn't leave anything out. Damn traitor." Heero cursed as the professor came running into the room.

"Heero, could you conduct a search of the ship?" He asked, "We have a stowaway running around here somewhere."

Heero hit a few buttons to shut down the camera system and then turned around and clipped Professor B on the back of the skull, making him fall to the floor unconscious. "Bastard." Heero glared down at him before running out and down to the unused portion of the ship. "Gotcha." He said, spying the cylinders of gas piled in the corner of the room. "Pure chlorine." He noticed glumly "We would have all been goners if it wasn't for that girl." He began to set them all into some empty boxes in the corner and then after checking the hallways, snuck them down into the mecha bay where he loaded them into the Eternity Gundam. His next trip took him back to the room he hared with Duo and Trowa where he began to pack the bare necessities he would need on Earth. A change of clothes, a toothbrush and his other limited toiletries, his laptop, some plug ins, disks full of information that was all he needed. If he found anything else he lacked later on, Quatre had seemingly unlimited capital resources and he was always trying to spread it out.

"Heero? What's going on here?" Duo asked, walking into their room "Why are we leaving and who was that chick with Trowa? Since when does he have a girlfriend?"

"Keep quiet." Heero warned, "That girl's name is Wysli and she snuck in here to tell us that our lives are in danger. She could also be a spy for the same person that she warned us about and they could have plans for us here. She's going to stay with us until I'm sure that she's a safe person."

"What about Professor B?" Duo asked

"What about him?" Heero asked dryly

"Is he going with us?"

"He's the one who was going to kill us." Heero replied, "Do you really want to drag him along?"

"Why would he want to do that?"

'He's lying unconscious in the control room right now. You can stick around and ask him when he wakes up if you want but I'm getting the hell out of here."

Trowa walked in and began to pack his things quickly and efficiently. "Everyone is aware of the situation who needs to be." He paused "Would you take Wysli with you in the Eternity? Katya is going with Pearl, I'm taking Calisia since Quatre is taking Satunia and Wufei is going to take all of Satunia's baby things with him."

"Hai." Heero grunted

"Heero, where are we going to go on the Earth? They're going to be looking for us down there."

"There's only one secure place that I know of." Heero muttered, "As much as I hate to do it, we're going to the mansion where Relena is hiding out."

"You put her in a mansion?" Duo asked

"It's very well hidden and it's the only place I know of that has enough room for all of us."

"Wouldn't it be less conspicuous if we split up?" Trowa asked

"Not at the moment. I rather have us all stick together until it's too dangerous to do so."

"Alright." Trowa zipped up his bag and stood up "Are we all set?"

"Guys…I think I need another bag." Duo moaned, trying to force down the mountain of items. The two of them looked at him and sighed, several other bags later, they stood up again, their bags bulging out with Duo's "necessities". "Let's get out of here." Heero said with a nod. The three of them made their way out to the bay where the rest of their companions stood around with bags, baby supplies, and one white cat crying in a makeshift carrying case. "Let's get these things loaded and get going." Heero commanded, picking up various bags and packing them in his Gundam. "You're coming with me." He told Wysli, grabbing her wrist and floating up to the cockpit. Minutes later, the eight suits exited Peacemillion and began flying to the Earth. "Hold on for a minute." Heero said, stopping the Eternity suit and throwing the boxes out into space. He climbed back into the cockpit, flew a little ways away and fired a laser beam out at the floating objects, watching them explode. "I'm not going to let you hurt any more innocent people." He swore as the flames quickly went out without any oxygen to feed upon.

"How noble of you." Wysli quipped

Heero glared at her "Put this on." He ordered, pulling a blindfold from the pocket of his jeans "I can't have you knowing the exact location of our safe house."

"Whatever you say." Wysli shrugged and fastened it over her eyes

"Hn." Heero grunted, flying through the atmosphere and over the continents until they settled down in a hidden valley on the South American continent. Heero laid the Eternity Gundam down on the ground and pulled a net covered in brush and other plants over it to hide it from anyone who may have been flying overhead.

He undid her blindfold and helped her out of the suit "It's this way." He said gruffly, leading her through the trees until a massive building rose up in front of them. 

"Why is there a mansion in the middle of nowhere?" She asked

"It suited our purposes." Heero shrugged as the rest of their group caught up to them.

"I am so not looking forward to this." Duo grumbled, struggling with his bags "I can't stand that girl."

"Does she even know we're coming?" Quatre asked

"There aren't any phones here, remember?" Heero asked, "The only communication she has with the outside world is through the laptop I left her. There's a connection in there that is run by one of the satellite companies. It would be nearly impossible to track her down that way."

Trowa walked up and knocked on the door. "Relena, it's us." He called softly through the intercom system.

"The door opened and a girl who couldn't be much older then the rest of them opened up the door. "Heero?" She asked, opening it even wider.

"Hn." Heero glared

"Why are you all here?" She asked, noticing the bags "I take it you're planning on staying awhile."

"It wasn't safe for us to stay in space so we had to find somewhere on the Earth to stay." Trowa answered for the rest of them since no one else really seemed to want to be social.

"Well, I'm glad you're here." Relena smiled "Life gets pretty boring when you're living in hiding."

"This is your powerful world leader?" Teardra asked in complete disbelief "She can't be more then sixteen."

"I'm seventeen." Relena replied, "Now who are all of you?"  
"Teardra Lee." She replied, her eyes icy cold.

Pearl stepped forward "I'm Pearl Robyn." She said, much more pleasantly then Teardra had "This is Katya Anne, Calisia Rose, Iris Teresa, Orchide Christine, and…" She paused

"Wysli Marie." The new white haired girl supplied, offering her hand for Relena to shake.

"Pleased to meet you all." Relena said with another smile

"Is there enough room for all of us here?" Heero asked

Relena thought for a moment "There are seven bedrooms here so there should be plenty of room."

"Let's get inside then." Heero said, more gruffly then usual. The mass of fourteen teenagers moved into the spacious living room area.

"So much for roughing it." Teardra commented, looking around at the expensive furniture and fixtures around her.

"Who stays with the baby?" Relena asked

"Do you want to?" Quatre asked Katya, "She seems to depend on you now."

"Alright." Katya agreed readily.

"You have a baby?" Relena asked Quatre in shock "I can't say I expected that one."

"I found her on the lunar base after it was destroyed." He explained, "I've already taken care of the formalities and I've legally adopted her. It wasn't very difficult to get it approved with no immediate family and with my family being who we are. Katya came around a few months ago and volunteered to be her nanny so I could keep fighting. The situation has worked out fine."

"I see. Well, then the two of you can have the master bedroom upstairs. It has its own private bathroom which you'll probably end up needing with a young child."

"That's fine with me." Katya replied

Hours later, everyone else was settled in; Heero, Trowa and Wufei were sharing a larger bedroom on the second floor. Quatre and Duo, Pearl and Calisia were in the two adjoining room with connecting doors leaving Iris and Orchide and Teardra and Wysli with the remaining two rooms on that floor. Relena was able to keep her bedroom on the third floor with Satunia and Katya across the hall.

Later on that night, Relena walked out onto the balcony and gazed out into the night. Somehow fate had brought her only true love back to her. She had been slowly falling into a socially deprived depression, not having anyone that she was able to talk to. People and noise, from the time she was able to walk, up until these recent times, had surrounded her. Now there was a warrant out for her arrest and she was forced to live in hiding until the pilots were able to come to her rescue again. 

She heard the balcony door below her open and a dark figure moved out into the dim light that shone out from behind the curtains. She looked down and smiled as she recognized the dark figure. "Heero." She murmured softly into the night. He gazed out over the area, not hearing her loving word and if he did, he ignored it like he often did to her. "I still love you." She whispered, walking back inside "I probably always will. But it doesn't matter, does it Heero?" She looked down at him one last time, shook her head and walked back inside the house.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

(A few weeks later)

  
  


Trowa sat in the living room of their current home, watching Teardra and Duo bicker on the other side of the room. This part of the Earth was very beautiful but it was also very dull. They had to stay at the house as much as possible and they weren't supposed to go out and tinker with the Gundams as much as they would have liked because once the systems were on, they were able to be tracked on a scanner. Trowa had begun to spend a lot of his seemingly endless amount of spare time in the library, going through book after book. Heero was usually sitting around somewhere, tapping away on his laptop, oblivious to the rest of the world. He wasn't making any big changes in his lifestyle. Duo seemed to enjoy being able to relax and being able to develop his current favorite hobby, mainly pursuing Teardra. Quatre was content being able to spend more time with Satunia although he was having Wufei train him in the martial arts because as he put it "I'm sick of being the weak one here." Trowa was also pretty sure that something was clicking between him and Calisia, the younger blonde boy was spending more and more of his time "watching out for her" and "keeping her company". Wufei on the other hand, was avoiding all the girls as much as possible. He was spending more and more of his time in the makeshift dojo he had created in the basement. He could spend days on end down there. Floating in a tangle of visions and solace his meditations often led to. He wanted to strengthen both his mind and body for the battles that were sure to come.

Teardra was usually working out in the basement next to Wufei but not with. She wanted to push herself beyond her limits and she didn't want anyone to help her. With Pearl around her constantly, her desire for power and strength was fueled even more. Pearl did some training but she mainly stayed by herself, meditating or just walking around. Katya was usually running all of their errands since she was the only one outside of the pilots with a driver's license that was valid on Earth. Just within the past few days, she had taken Calisia into the town to get her cast off and get further instructions on what to do with her leg. Besides all that, she was the ideal nanny for Satunia and a good friend towards Relena who wasn't very well liked by any of the rest of the girls.

Calisia, when she wasn't with Quatre or Trowa, was usually stretching, trying to get her leg back to normal now that her cast was off. Wufei helped her out a little with some various light exercises that he had learned back on his home colony but for the most part, she too was on her own. Iris and Orchide usually walked into the nearest small city for the day to do what knows what. Wysli was the only one who was really out of luck. Heero still didn't like to let her too far out of his sight. He was beginning to lighten up a little but not nearly enough to make her happy.

"Come on Teardra, we can go into town for dinner, a movie, a late night stroll along the beach." Duo stepped between her and the doorway

"First of all, neither of us speaks enough Spanish to make a movie worth it. Second, I don't like eating in restaurants. Third it's cloudy, we wouldn't be able to see any stars and the water would be too cold to be enjoyable. Fourth, I know you don't have any money on you to do any of the things that you want to do."

"I could get some." Duo protested "And if I couldn't, we could find other ways to spend our time."

"Oh Duo, you sexy thing." Teardra shuddered inwardly while outwardly batting her eyelashes at him, "How could I ever resist you and your…charm."

"Why the change of heart?" Duo asked with a grin "Not like it matters anything to me."

"Well, I just realized how much easier it would be to do this." She purred, moving her body into his embrace.

Duo smiled broadly until a wave of pure red-hot pain ran through his body. "You bitch!" He squealed, falling to the floor clutching his groin

"That's what you get for trying to treat me like a common whore." Teardra spat on him and stalked out of the room.

Trowa winced sympathetically and then helped Duo to his feet. "Ready to give up yet?" He asked

"I have not yet begun to flirt." Duo gasped out before falling back to the floor.

***

  
  


"What do you mean you can't find them?" Princess Maylm demanded

Professor B bowed slightly before her "My princess, it is just as I've said, the pilots and the girls are nowhere to be found on any of the colonies. We have conducted a laser census on each colony and they are 99.8% efficient. It's highly unlikely that they managed to escape the lasers.

"So where are you suggesting they are?" Maylm asked "Jupiter?"

"I'm thinking that they went to the Earth." Professor B replied, "The former Queen of the World Nation is in hiding somewhere in the western hemisphere. I don't know exactly where though."

"Well, send troops down there immediately!" She ordered

"We don't have photos or descriptions of all the girls." He added in quickly "We have the girl who was in the medical bay and two of the female pilots but we are lacking the other four."

"Do you have pictures of the five male pilots?" She asked

"No miss, we have photos of Duo, Trowa, and Quatre with the baby but Heero and Wufei refused to have their pictures taken. It must be an Asian thing."

"Never mind those then. You would be able to identify them when we find them, correct?"

"Yes. I'm sure I would be able to." He nodded

"Bien." She smiled wickedly "Get the photos you do have and have the copied and distributed to my soldiers."

Professor B bowed slightly "Yes my princess." He said, walking out to obey her orders.

Princess Maylm called up a map of the Earth and then zoomed in on the western hemisphere. "It isn't very probable that they would try the arctic or sub-arctic areas with that one girl in a cast and with a baby. That leaves the two connected American continents." She gazed at the map for another moment before walking briskly down to that area they used for confinement. "There is at least one person on board who probably knows where they went." She slid her hand through the laser lock and walked through the open door. "Senor Kushranada." She snapped, scanning over the bodies in the room

There was a slight pause "What do you want?"

"Do not address me so informally." She reprimanded, "I am, after all, the sole holder of your life at this moment. Now va a me."

Treize stood up and walked stiffly towards her. "Yes?" He asked

"I know you have the knowledge of where the Gundam pilots are hiding, or at least you must have a decent idea." 

"You think that I will tell you anything?" He asked

Maylm poked one of her nails at his neck "Let me make this clear to you. If you don't tell me what you know, your short life will end now."

"Mister Treize." A weakened female voice called out "Do what you know is right. Don't worry about us; we will take the path destiny commands us to take. Our welfare and lives shouldn't even play a factor in the decision you have to make."

Caiete!" Maylm shouted angrily

Treize nodded at the woman who had spoken "Yes, I understand you my lady." He bowed down in her direction and then turned to face Maylm "You may have the upper hand as of the moment but the war has not yet begun. It would be as difficult to stop these pilots, once they find out what you're planning, as it would be to turn a shooting star off of its given course. Madame, I assure you now, you will not succeed." He turned back to the darkness that enveloped his fellow companions in suffering. "Be brave my friends, our paths will cross again, some day. My lady, you will always be in my heart and mind."

"As you will be in mine." She replied softly, her voice as steady as it would have been if she had been sending him off on a pleasure trip through the colonies.

"Take care my friends." He turned back to face her

"Is that your answer then?" Maylm demanded coldly

"It is." Treize said firmly "I have faced the end many times already and always walked away victorious in our battle. I have always wondered what it would be like to lose. It looks like you are about to fulfill my last curiosity."

"Alright then." She tapped in the code to access the intercom, "Cyan, I need you in the prisoner's cell. Senor Kushranada has decided to leave us permanently." 

"Yes, my princess." Cyan's voice answered, "I'll be right there."

Treize swallowed hard but refused to let her rid him of his last bit of pride. Within minutes, however, sounds of his agony filled the ship before silence dominated once again.

***

  
  


"Hey baby." Quatre said, picking Satunia out of her playpen. "Want to go swimming? You must be getting as bored as I am just sitting around all day."

"Simmin!" Satunia exclaimed, jumping up and down, clapping her hands together.

"Alright." Quatre smiled and got her into her bathing suit and then got together her floaties, a few pool toys, sun screen, two towels, and a life jacket for her in case she wanted to follow him into the deeper end of the pool. It was a good twenty minutes before he was able to slip into his teal blue swim trunks and take them both outside.

It was a beautiful day; warm, bright, and clear. The golden sun was shining brightly against a sheet of blue silk with the occasional marshmallows like cloud floating by. The birds and the monkeys were chattering happily in the jungle that surrounded the house on three of the four sides. Quatre smiled, he had the same thoughts every single time he came to the Earth. The people who lived out their entire lives on that lush, green planet would never understand its true natural beauty. Space had its own kind of appeal but it just couldn't compare to this. Space was just too dark and too quiet. The bloodstained blackness just held the memory of too many lost lives to be called peaceful. The Earth was never completely quiet or dark. As one side turned its countenance to the darkness, the other opened its eyes to see the light. The people on the colonies had seen and been through too much to be innocent. The people living on the Earth had a sense of pure joy about them. They were naive and by being that way, they were more embracing and more accepting.

"Okay baby-girl." Quatre sang, slipping her into the life preserver. "Let's go swimming." He picked her up in one arm and the bag with all of the other supplies they needed in the other. He opened the gate and heard a splash. "Looks like someone beat us out here." He murmured, setting down his armfuls. 

Calisia surfaced in the center of the pool and began to tread water. "Need a way to beat the heat?" She asked

"Heat and sheer boredom." Quatre replied "Did the doctor give you the okay on this kind of activity?"

"He was the one who suggested it." She answered, "He said I needed to start working it more to regain the full use of it."

"Sim! Sim!" Satunia squealed, making a beeline towards the pool as soon as Quatre nodded at her. "'Lisia, sim with me!" 

Calisia laughed and took her hands, moving her around the pool. "Daddy, look! I'm simmin!" Satunia laughed and started splashing with her arms.

"Great job sweetie." Quatre smiled, settling back in one of the cushioned lounge chairs.

"Aren't you coming in?" Calisia asked him, letting Satunia go so she could go play with her pool toys.

"In awhile." He replied "It's just so nice out here right now."

"Suit yourself." Calisia climbed out and walked over to the diving board where she cannon-balled back in, sending a spray of water out to splash Quatre.

"Hey!" He exclaimed, jumping up, water droplets dripping off his hair "What did you do that for?"

"You looked too dry." She shrugged, tossing him a saucy grin before diving back under the water.

Quatre brushed his bangs out of his eyes and watched the two of them contentedly. His daughter and the nicest girl he had ever met. He had never met anyone quite like her before. She was the kind of girl that he had been waiting his entire life for. If it wasn't for her amnesia and for the fact that they didn't know what kind of group she was working for, he would have made a move on her already. He had talked to Trowa about it a little bit but the older boy had remained very indifferent about the subject. It seemed to Quatre that Trowa had a very strong opinion about the two of them but he wasn't going to say anything.

"Daddy!" Satunia shouted, smacking the water with her arms "Come in Daddy!"

Quatre stood up and spotted Calisia wringing her hair out over the water. She looked over at him and smiled sweetly "Are you going to get in?" She asked

His eyes locked onto hers and something in his body tightened. Suddenly, the cool water sounded pretty good. /What am I doing?/ He thought, diving in /I'm not supposed to be thinking like this. This is so not good./

"Quatre, are you alright?" Calisia asked "You look a little flushed. Are you sunburned?"

Quatre's face turned an even darker red "No, I'm fine, I just thought of something."

Calisia blushed as well "Never mind. I shouldn't have asked."

"Oh, shit." Quatre swore, "I forgot all about that. Is there some way you could turn those powers off?"

"Not that I know of." She replied, "In cases like this, I wish I could. I guess the only way around it is for you not to think anything you don't want me to know when someone asks a question."

"And I always thought the human mind was a safe place to hide." Quatre commented dryly

"The human mind is a dangerous place to be." Calisia replied, "Look at all the actions and weapons that are the product of the same mind that hopes for peace."

"You've got a point there." Quatre admitted slowly, "As sad as that may be."

"Who's got a point?" Relena asked, walking outside with Katya

"There you are." Katya sighed, spotting Satunia in the water "Quatre, next time can you let me know where you take her so I don't go completely gray before my time."

"Sim Kat-mama." Satunia giggled, splashing the two other two girls

"Quatre." Heero walked up to the gate "You need to see this." 

Quatre looked up and noticed the all-to-serious look on Heero's face. "What's going on?" He asked

Calisia's eyes widened as they looked from one boy to the other.

"Wufei just found a newspaper from a few days ago and it looks like Wysli was telling the truth about that princess."

Quatre climbed out of the pool and walked over to take the paper from Heero. "Treize Kushranada assassinated?" He asked in disbelief as he read on further "Princess Maylm Carolina Hernandez announces plans to reform OZ and to eventually unify the universe. "A blessing has fallen upon space with the assassination of the man who attempted to destroy it. I will do everything in my power to make sure that blessing is put to use to help to sooth some of the pain outer space and the Earth have felt at his hands." Senorita Hernandez. He looked up and Heero nodded

"It looks like we've got another war to fight and for some reason, I think this one may be harder then the rest." He remarked glumly.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

  
  


"I can't believe he's gone." Relena wiped away a tear

"Damn you, Treize." Wufei slammed his fist against a wall, cracking the plaster and scratching up his knuckles, barely noticing the blood dripping off his skin.

"So do you still think that he was the person behind the destruction of all those colonies?" Quatre asked

"Maybe one or two of the small ones at the beginning but I suspect that this princess was behind the vast majority of them." Heero said glumly

"Why do you think that?" Duo asked

"Think about it, Duo. This woman wasn't involved with OZ at all, yet, the same day that Treize is assassinated, she declared herself the new leader of the organization. It just seems to me that she was trying to ruin his reputation so that at the time of his assassination, people would be so against him that a large investigation would seem fruitless. People would just be glad that he was gone."

"Woman." Wufei barked, spinning around to face Katya, his hand still bleeding "You can see the past, can't you? Did she do it or not?"

Katya picked a clean handkerchief out of her pocket and pressed it gently against his wounds. "I can only see the past when I'm looking at the person." She murmured "If I ever met her, I would be able to tell. However, at this moment, I'm as far in the dark as all of you are."

"So, did she do it or not?" Quatre asked, looking at Calisia who shook her head 

"Like Katya, I'm powerless right now. I guess I need to be able to see the person to read their mind."

"You can read minds?" Duo asked in disbelief

"Only after a question is asked and only to find the answer that is being sought after." She replied

"Where have you been, Duo?" Heero asked

"In his room mas-" Calisia clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide in shock as the rest of the group burst out laughing.

"Okay. Okay." Duo's face was bright red "let's try this thing out. Who here thinks I'm the sexiest thing this planet has to offer right now?"

Calisia looked around the circle "No, no, over my dead body, no, no, well….not exactly, not ever close, yeah right, hn, hell no, that's funny, no, and hell yeah?" She looked confused for a moment but then smiled "never mind, that last was Duo."

"You are so pathetic." Teardra moaned, shaking her head

"Let's get back to business." Heero cut in "Even though the rest of the world is oblivious to this right now, we are in quite a bit of danger."

"She's not going to settle for just OZ, is she?" Katya asked, tying a bandage around Wufei's hand

"I highly doubt it." Trowa agreed with her "If was Wysli told us is correct and we have no reason to doubt her, she's not going to stop until the universe in under her command."

"But what if she's just trying to help?" Relena asked "Maybe she does know a way to end the fighting."

"I don't care if she had a way to grow food on Neptune to end universal hunger." Heero shot back "You don't need to assassinate a world leader or blow up places to try and help the world. Besides, we know for a fact that she is going to value her own success over the lives of innocents." He stood up "We need to go out and do some work on the mobile suits. They're going to have to be ready at a moments notice from now on."

"I'm going to get Satunia out of her wet suit." Katya told Quatre, leading the toddler out of the room. Calisia finished wringing out her hair and left as well, Wysli soon after. The mobile suits didn't interest either of them.

Relena looked wistfully after the pilots and sighed. Why couldn't she bring herself to stop loving him? Lord knows, she didn't want to anymore. It was obvious that he was never going to lover back. What he felt for her was clearly all out of duty. She shook her head and walked into the living room. She switched on the new and had just settled down on the couch when she heard the door open up again "Duo." She muttered, standing back up "How many times to I have to tell you not to pick that lock. We can't risk it getting broken." She walked out into the dinning room only to find, not Duo, but half a dozen black clad men.

One of them ran behind her and held her securely "Is she one of the ones we need?" The man asked

Another plucked out a strand of her hair and inserted in into a portable DNA identifier. "Miss Relena Peacecraft." He sneered "What a surprise."

"We can't have her running around, taking support away from Princess Maylm." A third man commented

"He's right, Miss former queen." The guard holding her said with a nod "you have no place in the world that we are planning on creating." He nodded to another who pulled out a gun and aimed it at her.

Relena just smiled, memories of a young Heero performing the same action running through her mind. It had only been two years since they had met but with everything they had gone through, she felt centuries older then what she was. She had lived through more then most people did and although it seemed unfair that her life had been squeezed into suck a short period of time, she was grateful that she had the chance to live, to make the statements she had. "Oh." She gasped, feeling the quick sharp pain of the bullet striking her and then the swelling, burning sensation that followed. She fell to the floor, her legs unable to support her own weight any longer. The world began to get darker as the seconds went by until she saw Heero standing in front of her, a light illuminating his form from behind. "Heero, it hurts so much." She whispered

He just kept looking at her until he gave her a curt nod "You want me to follow you?" She asked, forcing herself to stand. Suddenly the pain was gone, everything was except for her, him, and the brilliant light of the moment. "You're always giving me the strength to go on." She smiled sadly "I know I'm a weak person, Heero, but I want to be stronger. I want to be like you."

His mouth twitched and it almost seemed like he had smiled at her before he made the motion with his hand for her to follow him into that light. She followed him eagerly, not realizing that she had left her body behind. 

"Your move." Wysli told Calisia, after moving one of her pawns forward.

Calisia studied her options and placed her hand on a knight but before she could move it, the two of them heard a gunshot split through the silence and then a loud thud. "This can't be good." Calisia jumped up

Wysli grabbed her wrist "Don't." She warned "They'll kill you first and question your body later. There's a pen and paper over there. Write a note quickly and we'll have to find a place to put it where the soldiers can't find it." 

"Who are they?" Calisia whispered

"I'm not sure but Maylm sent them." Wysli sat down on the floor and drew a big P. M. in the dust under the table.

Katya ran into the room, carrying a crying Satunia "Assassins." She moaned "What do you think they're doing here?"

"Probably looking for Heero and the others." Wysli responded

Calisia knelt down on the floor. "They have orders to take anyone they find back with them." She said softly before running back to the note she was writing.

The three girls stood around the room, "We have to get to the guys." Wysli said

"But we can't leave the house." Calisia protested "They'd see us and follow us to them."

"We need to get out of here." Katya said, her face white and her body shaking.

"It's too late for that." Wysli put in, listening to the boots pounding on the floor.

The door flung open and three of the guards stormed into the room. "You three some with us now. If you refuse, we have orders to kill you here and now."

"You need to let me gather some supplies." Katya stood up with Satunia, still shaking "Unless you want me to leave her here."

"Is she able to speak yet?" The man asked

"Not really." Katya replied, hoping they couldn't tell that she was lying "Small words now and then but mostly baby gibberish."

"Leave her here." He replied "We're taking you three now."

Calisia slipped the note she had written into Katya's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "I need to put her in her crib." Katya shot back "It's not safe for her to stay in here by herself."

"That's none of our concern." The man said, turning away. Katya still stood there, looking at his back until he turned back around "Look lady, I don't want to have to kill you." She still just stood there, looking at him with her chin held high. Finally, he just sighed "You two stay here and keep and eye on these girls. We'll be right back." He shook his head "I'm such a pushover. Maybe I should have gone back to the university. I would have made a better doctor then an assassin."

Katya almost cracked a smile but busied herself keeping Satunia quiet. If the little girl started to talk, their only bit of hope would be ruined. She got out and extra bottle and set it in the crib as well as a few toys. "You be good sweetie." Katya murmured, slipping the small, folded, piece of paper in the waistband of her pants.

Satunia's lower lip began to tremble "Kat-mama go bye-bye?" She asked

"It's naptime, Satunia." Katya ignored her question and tucked a blanket around her

"No go bye-bye!" Satunia began to wail, "Kat-mama no go!"

"Come on." The man grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the room. Damn his conscience. He couldn't stand to see a mother being separated from her child. Maylm should have sent Cyan on this mission; he wouldn't have cared one way or another. 

Katya followed him out of the room and back to the library. "The truck is waiting out front." Another one of the men said "We have to move now."

Safire snapped the handcuffs around the wrists of the three girls. 

"Don't you have to tell us why you're taking us in?" Wysli asked, "Even Princess Maylm has to obey the simple factors of the law."

"Wysli Marie ______, Calisia Rose VanMorate, and Katya Anne ______, the three of you are being charged with mutiny against the head of the OZ organization, Princess Maylm Carolina Hernandez." He nodded at the three of them in turn "Is that what you wanted to hear? That you and your friends are just too big of a threat to be left alone out here."

"Do you mean you're going to kill us?" Calisia asked, her eyes widening as she found the answer she was seeking.

"That's for Princess Maylm to decide." He led them out of the room and down the flight of stairs "But most likely, yes, she will dispose of you after you have suited her purposes."

Katya glanced over to the side and saw Relena's body, surrounded by a small pool of her own blood. She screamed once, and then promptly fainted.

"Shit." Safire swore, quickly picking up her body as the other remaining men pushed Wysli and Calisia out the door and into the back seat of a small black van, with guards in front, behind, and on both sides of them. The van sped away rather quickly, leaving the two conscious girls in the back to wonder what was about to happen to them.

***

The nine pilots were just finishing up the last few checks on the suits when Wufei jerked his head up. "Did any one else just hear a scream?" He asked, concentrating on the sounds in the area.

The others stopped tinkering for a moment to listen. "I don't here anything." Orchide said

"Neither do I." Duo shut down Deathscythe's main system and replaced the cover on the suit.

"Guys, I've got a really bad feeling. Something isn't quite right." Quatre clutched his chest and winced as his uchuu no kokoro was making its distress very obvious to him.

"We need to get back to the house now." Heero decided, "Hurry up and recover your suits."

They all followed his orders and rushed back to the house. "Be careful guys." Trowa warned, his eyes resting on the tire tracks that were prominent in front of the house.

Wufei pulled out his katana and approached the door. "Someone broke in." He noticed glumly, running his fingers along the chipped wood at the edge of the door.

Heero had his gun ready as Wufei inserted the code to the new system they had installed. The door swung open and the two of them moved into the dimly lit area. 

Heero hit the light and they crept further inside. "Oh fuck." He cussed

"Shit." Wufei dropped his sword on the floor.

The other seven ran inside and gazed down at Relena's body. "God damn it." Duo swore, "No fucking way."

"She's gone." Teardra said, checking for a pulse and finding none. "It didn't happen long ago though. The body is still somewhat warm and the blood hasn't started to dry yet."

"Wait, what about Katya, Satunia, Calisia, and Wysli?" Quatre asked

Heero nodded at him and Trowa, "We're going to go look upstairs."

"What do you want us to do with the body?" Pearl asked him

"Check the rest of this floor before you do anything." Heero instructed, "Then dig her a grave in the backyard somewhere. We're going to have to make sure to report this to the newspapers as an assassination. Hopefully this will rise some suspicion against Maylm before she gets too far." He turned and walked up the stairs, Quatre and Trowa following closely behind him. 

Every room on the second floor was completely empty except for some muddy boot prints that Heero spotted on the stairs. On the third floor, it seemed the same way, with the library in shambles and footprints all over the place. Quatre rushed into the room that Katya shared with Satunia and found the little girl still lying in her crib, her cheeks stained with tears. "Daddy!" She cried, holding out her arms to him, "Kat-mama go bye-bye."

"Shh…it's okay baby." Quatre cooed, hugging her to him and then feeling something scratch against his arm. He shifted his hold on her and found a small piece of paper tucked into the waistband of her pants. He shifted her again, so he could unfold the note and began to read.

  
  


Quatre-

  
  


I'm not sure what is going on right now but I know it's not good. Wysli must think the same thing because she told me to write this to you while we still have time. There was a gunshot from downstairs and now some people are running around the house. They're coming into the room and they're definitely all men and they work for Princess Maylm. Okay…for a second I thought they saw me writing this but I'm okay. We're all okay at the moment. They aren't planning on killing us here but from what the man is saying and thinking we're not going to have long. They're taking us to some city called Cabra to one of their bases here. Please hurry Quatre; you and the others are the only hopes we have. I know you'll be able to help us, I just hope that it's in time. 

All my love,

~Calisia

  
  


Quatre swallowed hard as he looked up from the paper. Thankfully, Satunia was asleep so he placed her back inside her crib and took the note back downstairs. "Guys, it looks like they were taken away by some men working for Princess Maylm." "He handed the note to Trowa.

"We have bigger things to worry about right now." Teardra shot back "if they die before we get to them, then it will be a pity but it's not like they're doing anything really important around here anyways."

Quatre thought quickly, "We can't let them stay there." He pointed out "What's going to happen if Maylm discovers their powers? She'll find a way to use them against us."

Heero's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "You have a point there, even though I'm not sure what your true intentions are." He sighed, "Somehow we need to move away from here today and we need to find those girls before Maylm can get her hands on them."

"Split up. Send two or three to find the girls and the rest to find a new home." 

"That's the best idea you've ever come up with." Teardra commented dryly to Iris.

The girl's eyes widened "That wasn't me."

"Or me." Orchide said quickly

"I haven't said anything." Pearl said, holding up her hands.

"It was defiantly a woman." Wufei noticed

Duo gazed over into a corner "Guys, did we pick up another chick without my knowing it?"

A black clad figure stepped out into the room "I've been watching you five for quite awhile now and I admire you all greatly. I've also been keeping a close eye on our common enemy and I found out much about her that will be revealed to you all in time."

"Do you have a name, friend?" Wufei smirked

"Qiera Psychi." She replied coolly, fixing a bright yellow gaze on him.

"Dude! What happened to your eyes?" Duo asked

"I'm a survivor of one of Maylm's conquests." She replied "Chemicals discolored the eyes of those who survived, it eventually killed rest of them, just like it will eventually do to me."

"Isn't there a cure for whatever it is?" Iris asked

"No. The chemicals she used were a mistake…incompetent scientists." Qiera scoffed

"Did she use those chemicals on all the colonies?" Quatre asked nervously.

"The first only. It left more survivors then what she was satisfied with. She beheaded the scientists and never used that particular combination again."

"What do you want with us?" Heero asked, narrowing his eyes at her suspiciously.

"I want you to allow me to aid you in your fight against them." She replied, "You're use to receiving commands and missions from the recently deceased Doctor Jai. I'll do the same. I know enough about her to bring her down with your help. However, since I don't posses the skills or brute strength to pilot a mobile suit, I can't do this on my own."

"Anyone object to us listening to her?" Heero asked, turning to face the rest of their little group.

"What? No suspicions?" She asked with a quirky smile

"I don't trust her." Teardra declared, stepping forward "How do we know that what she says is true? You accused Wysli of being a spy with Maylm…why don't you think that of her? She could be leading us right into a trap."

"You don't know any of that." Qiera replied sharply "Just like you don't know if I set a bomb under the couch and I'm just keeping you preoccupied long enough for it to go off. You're just going to have to trust me, though I know how difficult it will be for you to do that, Ice Princess."

Teardra's eyes narrowed but she nodded reluctantly.

"Good, now for your three friends…" She began to speak but as soon as her back was turned, Teardra took a quick look under the couch.

***

"I think she's waking up." 

"I think you're right. Katya? Katya, can you here me?"

Katya opened up her eyes and blinked a few times while her vision came back into focus and she could pick out the worried faces of Wysli and Calisia hovering above her. "I'll be fine in a little while.' She replied, sitting up slowly. "Where are we?"

"Some fortress belonging to Princess Maylm." Wysli spat out 

"She just holding us here until the others stop looking for us and then she's going to have us sent to outer space to her main base." Calisia sighed

"How long have we been here?" Katya asked

"About ten hours now." Wysli replied after checking her watch.

Katya glanced around the small cell that they were sitting in. She had been lying on the sole cot. In one corner, there was a small table with an oil lamp burning dimly in the center of it. On the table in the other corner, there was a bowl and pitcher of what she assumed was water with a towel lying to the side. "Well, we know this room hasn't been updated since the early twentieth century." Katya noticed, running her finger along the metal of the bed frame and wrinkling her nose at the grime she found there. "It probably hasn't been cleaned since then either."

"You probably won't be here long enough for it to matter." A voice came from outside their cell. They looked over and saw the same man who had let Katya put Satunia in her crib sitting in a chair next to their cell, nursing a can of beer. "We have orders to send you out tomorrow at twilight."

Katya looked at him and smiled "How did you get to be an assassin? It's not what you originally set out to be."

"What makes you so sure of that?" He asked

"It's a gift." She replied, "How did you go from being a med-student to a piece of a rebellion?"

He looked at her and set his can of beer on the ground. "Just say I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the AC 193 battles between the Earth and colonies, the colonies had to draft the young men to fight. I passed the piloting tests with incredibly high scores so they weren't about to leave me in school. I was sent out with a space Leo suit and eventually I was injured. I was sent back to my home in disgrace and even thought I still wanted to be a doctor, I was too depressed to do so. Eventually Maylm came along and gave me the chance to do something with myself. She was offering me money and power as long as I swore lifetime allegiance to her." He looked up at them, "And yes, I do often regret that decision. This isn't the right lifestyle for me but there really isn't anything I can do about it now." He turned back away from them and after a moment, they heard some very light breathing.

"How are we going to get out of here?" Wysli hissed, shaking the bars "Too bad Pearl isn't here. She could melt through these bars in a second."

"There's a blocked off vent." Calisia spoke slowly, sinking down to the floor with her eyes glazing over again. "In that dark corner. They nailed a few boards over it because it wasn't very stable. Can't let the girls see it…have to keep them from that corner…so very tired…can't wait to change posts. Can't stand visiting with people I'm going to have to kill." She shook her head and focused her eyes on where Wysli was inspecting the ceiling planks with a smile. 

"She's right." She declared happily, "It wouldn't take very much to pry them away either." She gave Calisia a hug "You're absolutely amazing." She said, her eyes shinning, "You just changed all of our futures. Do either of you have any kind of tool with you?"

They emptied their pockets "A pen, some tissues, a pair of nail clippers, some paperclips, about three dollars and the rook?" Katya looked over at Calisia "Why would you bring the rook with you?"

"Were you cheating?" Wysli asked

"No! I was just putting the chess pieces into a PM just in case the letters in the dust and the note ideas got nixed. I wasn't able to finish the M and this would have been the last piece."

"Girl, you thought of nearly everything." Katya noted

Wysli took the pen and the nail clippers and moved one of the tables under the area. She climbed up onto it and began to scrape and pull the nails out of the boards, leaving them in just enough to keep the boards in place. "While they're changing guards tonight, we're getting out of here."

***

  
  


Sandrock, Altron, and the Eternity Gundams set down about a mile away from the location Qiera had directed them to. "Remember to keep quiet." Heero warned them and they made their way through the outer edge of the jungle and into the city. "Don't let anyone see you if you can help it. Maylm obviously has some influence here already and the people probably won't handle us very kindly."

The three of them slunk through the darkened pathways searching for the building Qiera had described to them. "That's got to be it." Wufei pointed out the old, darkened building across the street from where the stood.

"It doesn't look very big." Quatre noticed "At least not big enough to hold an entire section of an organization."

"It's either a very small organization, which I highly doubt, or they probably expanded it underground to keep their positions somewhat secret." Heero studied it intently. "We won't know which it is until we break inside."

"What time did Qiera say they changed positions?" Wufei asked

"Midnight. We move from here at 12:05." Heero replied

"What time is it now?" 

"11:54." He replied, watching the building 

"I just hope they're still alright." Quatre murmured, gazing over at the building as well.

***

  
  


"Wysli, wake up." Katya hissed in her ear, "I think they're about to change."

The white hair girl opened up her eyes quickly and glanced over at Calisia who was sitting by the bars. She looked over at the two of them and gave a slight nod before continuing her conversation with the same man they had spoken to earlier. "So how did you three end up with the Gundam pilots if you can't pilot a mobile suit?"

"They found Katya and I and kept us around for who knows what reason. Wysli found us and Heero, being the person he is, he decided that she might be a spy for your Princess Maylm so he decided he couldn't let her go."

"It's not like the pilots to keep unnecessary baggage around." He remarked, "Maybe they think you two have some kind of magic powers or something." He glanced down at his watch and stood up "I'm sorry that we had to do this to you guys. You seem like really nice people. But you know…" He shrugged and turned away from them "Orders." He started to leave the room.

"Excuse me." Wysli called after him "You never told us your name."

He turned back to them. "Safire, Safire Fearlon."

"We will meet again, Mr. Fearlon." Wysli nodded at him "Hopefully we will have the chance to return the, hospitality, you have shown us."

He held up his hand "Call me Safire." He replied with a small smile "And yes, I do believe we will meet again." He turned his back on them again and walked through the door at the end of the hall.

"Quick, push that table over." Calisia said, pulling the nail clippers and pen out of her pocket as the other two girls pushed the small end table over. The three boards were quickly discarded in a corner. Wysli climbed up into the vents first and then nodded at the two of them.

"What way is out?" Katya asked, crawling quickly behind Calisia

"Right now, let's just worry about getting away from here." Wysli replied

The three girls began to slide through the open vents from one area of the building to another when suddenly, Wysli stopped. "They're gone." The heard a voice from above them say "Maylm has been on the line with Safire for the past ten minutes and I wouldn't be surprised if she ordered his execution."

"How did they get out?" Another voice asked

"They managed to find that vent behind those boards. They're probably long gone by now."

"Damn it." The other voice swore "I needed that promotion. My wife and kids are living on the bare minimum right now."

"Well, that's what you get for having six kids." The first voice reminded him

"Six children?" Katya whispered "Living off of the income of a rebel?"

"Don't worry about that now!" Calisia said, starting to crawl forwards again "Just concentrate on getting out of here for now." They began to move through the vents again until the first burst of cool air hit them. "We're almost there!" Wysli exclaimed, breathing deeply

"Don't get your hopes up too high." Calisia put in "They'll probably have a guard at every vent leading out of this building." Wysli reached the end of their path and glanced out, finding a pair of black boots standing in front of their exit.

"Damn it." She muttered "I was hoping they would have thought that we were gone by now and would have given up on guarding us."

"Wait a second." Calisia glanced around her and past the man "Am I just dreaming or is that Quatre?"

Wysli followed her gaze "Looks like Wufei is out there with him too." She noticed, giving Katya a sly glance.

She blushed, almost as red as her hair "Is it that obvious?" 

"Not as bad as Calisia and her sweetheart." Wysli teased, the knowledge that the pilots hadn't abandoned them bringing some lightheartedness back into them.

"Does it mean anything to either of you that we're sitting here gossiping in a dirty vent?" Calisia blushed as well "Anyways, we're just friends."

"Yeah right. Not with the way he looks at you." Katya grinned, "Feel happy, at least your crush has feelings back."

"I never said I had a crush on him." Calisia protested

"Smile if you're guilty." Wysli said, making Calisia grin and then hide her face in her hands. "Thought so."

"What about you?" Katya asked "You've got to have feelings for at least one of the guys."

"Even if I did, I can guarantee that I'd end up scaring them away." Wysli replied "They don't like anyone having an upper hand on them and I'm pretty sure I do on all of them, except for maybe Duo."

"I'd put my money on Wufei and Heero." Calisia replied 

"You mean Wufei isn't a …" Katya's voice drained off

"He's been married and widowed already. I'm pretty sure he and his wife did something. As for Heero, the perfect soldier has to be well rounded."

Wysli blushed slightly making Katya and Calisia look at her in shock "You mean you have a thing for…" Katya asked in shock

Wysli nodded slightly but a soft crack from outside caught her attention. A thud followed soon after and the lifeless eyes of a man stared in at them. Katya gasped as another face peered in at them and backed up quickly. "Heero?" Wysli asked, focusing on the familiar cobalt blue eyes. He nodded and quietly went to work taking off the grate, freeing the three girls. "You're going to have to hurry. Go over to that alley where Quatre and Wufei are waiting and they'll take you to where the Gundams are. I'll be there as soon as I can fix this and get rid of this body. Now go!"

They didn't need to be told twice. "Why isn't Heero coming?" Quatre asked

"He's going to meet us back at the Gundams as soon as he takes care of things here." Katya replied

"Fine, then let's move." Wufei took off through the darkened paths, his hand resting on his katana the whole way back. They ducked under the nets that hid the suits, Katya and Wufei getting into Altron, Quatre and Calisia in Sandrock, leaving Wysli to sit in the Eternity suit. "Are you okay?" Quatre asked her after the hatch had closed again.

"They didn't touch us there." She replied "Just scared us into listening to them." She hugged him tightly "Quatre, you don't know how worried I was getting that you guys wouldn't find us."

He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head "Did you actually think that we'd let you guys die without rebelling in some way?"

"It's not like we were a vital part to your survival." She said slowly, her eyes drifting shut.

"That's what Teardra said." He replied "I just got Heero to see that you could be useful to Maylm with your powers and we couldn't let you fall into her hands. Eventually he had to agree with me." He looked down at her sleeping form and shifted her carefully so he could pilot Sandrock without waking her up. It had been a long day for all of them.

Heero dragged the body of the soldier into the bushes near by. /It should be a while before they start looking for him, at least not until the next change of positions/ He gazed around quickly. By the time they found the dead man, they would be long gone. He debated whether or not to destroy the entire base completely and eventually had to decide against it. Security was up and would be up until they realized the girls were gone for good. No, it was much too risky to do that now; there would be time enough for it later on. Heero grabbed the uniform that he had removed from the soldier's body and started to make his way back to where the other pilots were waiting. Wysli moved over to make room for him and he started up the engines. "Everybody ready?" Wufei asked

Heero brought up a video file that had been sent to him. "Heero, we found a new spot. It's a small house at the bottom of a hill in Southeast Australia. It's going to be kind of crowded but it's completely hidden from the sky because of some of the trees around it. We can hide the suits in a canyon nearby. Qiera said that she's going to find other accommodations for the time being. The coordinates are 487.997 south and 53.941 east." The line ended and Heero immediately sent it to the other two pilots. "We better take three separate routes there. Wufei, you take the artic route. Quatre, you can go over the Eur-Asia way and I'll go sub-artic. Send a signal to Wing Zero if you encounter any problems. Teardra said that she'd stay there until we all arrive at the new house. Use the restricted R-1935 line. The code number to activate it is 97204." He closed the connection and started to boot up the engines. The three suits took off and separated onto their three separate routes.

Within a few hours, they managed to find the small house. "We're going to fit how many people in there?" Katya asked, her eyes wide

"Twelve people, one baby, and one cat." Wufei looked as surprised as she was.

Calisia gazed down at where Duo and Trowa were patching up the roof. "I really hope that it's one of those places that looks a lot smaller then what it actually is."

It wasn't. The small, mostly run-down house consisted of four small bedrooms, one full bathroom and another half bath, a small kitchen, dinning room, a decent sized living room, a musty attic and a dreary basement. Iris and Orchide had driven into the town and picked up some furniture with the pick-up truck they had found in the garage so each room was packed with several sets of bunk beds, two dressers and a small desk. The living room was stocked with some cheep couches, chairs, and tables. Everything was second hand except for Satunia's baby equipment.

They had barely gotten out of the suits when Pearl came running out of the house, carrying a crying baby against her shoulder. "Please take her back!" She pleaded with Katya, "I don't know how you deal with this." 

Katya smiled and settled Satunia on her hips, soothing her cries "Is there going to be enough room for everyone here?" She asked

"If there isn't, you can always sleep in the bathtub." Wufei's mouth threatened to form a smile.

Katya was not amused.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

  
  


"Has anyone seen my green pants?"

"Ouch! Who left that chair there?"

"You did, last night."

"Owww…and the dresser?"

"It's right where you wanted it to be. Wysli, you really are a clutz."

"Am not."

"Are too."

Pearl buried her head under her pillow. It seemed that she was the only one in the house that liked to sleep in late and it was becoming more and more difficult to do that. Wysli and Calisia were usually up at the crack of dawn and no matter how quiet they tried to be, they always managed to wake her up. The house was way too small for the amount of people they were keeping there. One of the bedrooms held all five guys; another had Teardra, Iris, and Orchide. Pearl, Wysli and Calisia shared the third, leaving Katya and Satunia with the last and smallest room in the house. Quatre had been replacing all of the older furniture with some more expensive and comfortable pieces and some other various items that made the house much more bearable then it would have been otherwise. The living room was now equipped with a flat-screen television set, stereo system and bookshelf stocked with various volumes found in the attic and from a nearby bookstore. 

Their little group had been stuck there for a week already and hadn't heard anything from Qiera. Heero had taken the time to track her to an apartment in a nearby city so they knew she was still in the area but that didn't help the fact that they were all at each other's throats. 

Pearl gave another sigh and then forced herself out of her bed to hunt around the room for some clean clothes. Thanks to Quatre, everyone had a complete wardrobe of clothes and shoes. In fact, he had spent money on jewelry, cosmetics, and everything else the girls had planned on going without. He had become like a little brother to all of them. Trowa was right up there too. He was always ready to listen to them whenever they needed a shoulder to lean on, and he usually had a bit of carefully chosen advice to offer. That was where the loving relationships ended though. Duo was perfectly willing to date anyone of the girls but because of that, it was very difficult to keep a decent friendship going with him. Heero and Wufei, on the other hand, tended to keep themselves locked up and separated from the other people in the house as much as possible. They were really off in their own little worlds. 

Pearl grabbed a pair of jeans and a red shirt and right before she changed into them, she heard the water in the shower down the hall stop. She sighed and walked into the hallway, holding the clothing in her hands. It was a rare morning where she was able to wake up with a hot shower, or even a cold one at that. With fourteen people sharing two bathrooms, the showers were going almost all day long.

She stood patiently by the door until it opened and Heero walked out, a small white towel wrapped snugly around his waist. Water was still dripping from his messy brown hair and off his skin. //Not a bad sight to wake up to// Pearl thought, her face blushing pink "Morning." She said quickly

He paused and glanced back at her standing there, wearing the baggy gray shirt she wore to bed every night. A small smile played at the corner of his mouth before he nodded at her and walked back to his room. She shook her head, smiled, and walked into the bathroom.

"Daddy! Another 'tory!" Satunia exclaimed, handing him another one of her books from a pile in her room.

Quatre took it from her and looked at the cover. "We've already read this one today. Are you sure you don't want to read a different one?"

Satunia shook her head and stuck out her lower lip. As if some outside force had thrown them, the pile of books scattered around the room. "What the…" Quatre jumped up and stared down at his daughter who was still holding onto her precious princess storybook. 

"That was really strange." Calisia noted, walking into the room, picking up some of the scattered books as she walked further into the room.

"Do you think she did it?" Quatre asked, "All of you have some kind of strange powers, why shouldn't she?"

Calisia turned to look at Satunia who was looking at the pictures in her book "I don't know." She said finally, "She's just thinking about the book right now."

Katya walked into the room, her hair wrapped up in a towel. "Thanks for watching her." She said, drying off her hair. "Do you want to read?" She asked Satunia.

The little girl's face broke out in a big dimpled smile "Kat-mama read!" She giggled, handing her the book.

Quatre smiled at Calisia and shook his head "Let's leave these two alone for now." He suggested, nodding at the stairs

"Good idea." Calisia smiled back at him before the walked down to the living room together.

Wufei was sitting in a chair by the fireplace, reading one of the books that he had found in the attic when he heard the knock at the door. Sighing, he placed a bookmark at his place and forced himself to his feet to walk over to the door. He opened it only to find a medium sized box without any other person in sight. After looking around once more, he grabbed the package and took it into the dinning room. "What's that?" Duo asked, coming out of the kitchen, half of a peanut butter sandwich crammed in his mouth.

Wufei shook his head "You are such a pig, Maxwell." He said, walking upstairs to inform everyone else about the package.

"What did I do?" Duo shrugged and walked back into the kitchen to finish his lunch.

Within twenty minutes, everyone was seated around the large dinning room table. Heero opened up the box and lifted out a sealed envelope. He tore it open and read the note enclosed within

  
  


Pilots,

You are about to begin your first mission of the new era. Maylm had hidden most of the information within various common organizations that are being run by some of her henchmen. Your first mission is for two of you to infiltrate a factory as inspectors issued by the government. Your papers and identification are enclosed. While you are there, one of you are going to set a small bomb in an area of the factory and while they are taking car of the small fire, the remaining player will make his way down to the computer control office and get a list of the people and areas currently under her control. This mission should take one day and one night. You have reservations at the Moset Inn in Beachville. Take care.

  
  


~Qiera

  
  


Heero set the paper back on top of the box. "So how are we going to decide who goes?"

"I'd say Teardra and one of you five." Calisia spoke up "From what I remember about government workers, they are normally very stern and detached. No offence." 

"None taken." Teardra nodded, "So who do you want me to go with?"

"Me me me me me me!" Duo jumped up and down, waving his hands in the air. Heero ignored him and studied the other pilots intently "It would be to easy for someone to recognize you." He said to Quatre, "Trowa, if anyone from the former OZ was working there, you'd be found out in an instant. I would rather have Wufei wait for a different mission. I'm not sure why but it's just this gut feeling I have right now."

"Pick me!" Duo jumped up in his chair "Come on Heero! You know I'd be the best at sneaking around. I'm better at it then anyone else here!"

Heero paused, making Teardra jump up out of anger "You can't be seriously thinking about sending me out with him!" She exclaimed

"Teardra, I'm sorry but he's right. We need to do some major sneaking in a place occupied by thousands of workers and Duo's the only one here who could do that successfully." He sighed, "Duo, you can go with her as long as you cut your hair first."

Duo stopped his victory dance to clutch his braid protectively. "How short?" He demanded

"I'll do it for you." Katya spoke out, "It will grow back out eventually but right now, it's much too noticeable."

Duo glanced at Teardra, down at his braid, back to Teardra, and then at his braid again. "Fine." He agreed reluctantly.

Teardra sank down into her chair and glared at Heero "If I wasn't leaving tonight, I would make sure you wouldn't wake up tomorrow morning."

Heero very calmly pulled a gun out of his pocket and aimed it at her. "Care to say that again?" He asked her

She shook her head "I really do hate you." She said, getting up from the table to pack.

Katya sat Duo down on the closed toilet seat; scissors, combs, spray bottles, and other supplies were scattered all over the bathroom counter. "Is it going to hurt?" 

Katya laughed, "Why would you think that?"

"I don't know. I've never had my hair cut before. Sister Helen braided it for me when I was younger and I just kept it as something to remember her with." He un-wound the black rubber band from the end of his braid and let the silky mass fall down around his face and down his back.

"Wow." She said, lifting up a handful of his hair "I thought you'd have split ends starting halfway up."

Duo shrugged "it's not like it matters now that you're cutting it off."

Katya kept running her fingers through the strands. "You know, Duo, even if you can't keep this, we can send it off to one of those places that makes wigs for the children who have lost their hair because of the radiation in the air."

"Might as well." Duo shrugged again, "At least it won't go to waste. 14 years of memories. I guess it's time to let go." He sighed and leaned back. Katya smiled, picked up a pair of scissors and began to snip away, letting the long locks fall to the floor. Duo just started ahead, his eyes completely blank as he watched his hair being cut away bit by bit.

Before long, Duo's once four-foot long braid was reduced to a messy mass of waves dropping down over his eyes. Katya brushed out his hair and sprayed it one last time before stepping back to take a good look at him. "Wow." Her eyes widened as she took in the change in his appearance. His cheekbones were much more defined and it was as if he had matured years, physically. 

"Is it okay?" He asked

"Duo…just…wow. I never thought you'd look quite like this."

"So…good or bad?"

"Duo, just look in the mirror, you're absolutely gorgeous!"

He glanced into the mirror above the sink and a huge grin spread across his face. "Thanks, Kat." He brushed a kiss across her cheek, "I've got to go pack. Wait until Teardra sees me like this!"

"Duo, wait a second." Katya picked up a longer section of his hair and tied it with a piece of ribbon from her pocket. "Not all memories should be forgotten."

He smiled broadly and gave her a hug before running off to his room to pack, hair in hand, leaving Katya to clean up the mess in the bathroom.

"Here are the directions to the city." Heero handed them the box and all of the other papers they would need to get through the next day. "Qiera made reservations at the Moset Inn for you two. Just stay serious and stick to the main objective we've been given."

Teardra nodded and began to read through the information again while Duo shifted the truck into drive and took off like a bat out of hell. "Slow down!" She ordered, as the papers flew all over the place "If you get pulled over, we're done before we even start."

"Can I help it if I like it fast?" He tossed her a saucy grin

"Fast is an understatement." She retorted, "You're probably in, out, and done."

Duo almost drove off the road "I can't believe you said that!" He exclaimed

"Well I did. Now either you slow down or I'm going to drive the rest of the way."

Duo moaned but kept the speed down until they arrived at the city four hours later. "This is where we're staying?" Duo asked in disbelief "Talk about slum city."

Teardra looked at the seedy motel disdainfully "It isn't a four star hotel, that's for sure. She probably wanted it to be less conspicuous. Do you remember our names?"

He pulled the identification out of his pocket "Ian Charusa at your service, Miss Blair Harverd." He bowed and then grinned at her "You don't have to worry." He tried to reassure her, "I've been doing this for about three years now. I know what I'm doing, babe." He leaned over to give her a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Duo!" She hissed, backing away from him to glance around the streets "Don't do that! What if somebody sees you?"

"They'll think I'm hopelessly in love with you." He replied, picking up their bags and walking into the office. "Room for Charusa?" He asked the man behind the desk

The man eyed him suspiciously "You're dressed awful fancy for being here." His eyes wandered up and down Teardra's body before he gave her a lewd smile, not realizing that she had balled her fists up at her sides. "Bet you'll have one wild ride tonight." He commented, handing Duo a key "Room 20."

Duo glared at him and after grabbing their bags, stalked up to their room. "If you would have tried to kill him, I wouldn't have stopped you." He said through clenched teeth.

"Wouldn't have looked good on my resume." She replied, eyeing the small room with the double bed

"Did you just crack another joke?" Duo asked in complete shock

Teardra plopped down on the edge of the bed and kicked off her low healed shoes and sighed "It happens once or twice a millennium."

"Maybe I should just keep you away from the fighting then." Duo opened the bathroom door, wrinkling his nose at the moldy linoleum and chipped porcelain. 

"I don't think so." She jumped up and took out a pair of high-healed pumps "We have to get to the factory. Our appointment is for 3:30. Are you ready to go?"

He grabbed the folder and hid it inside his portfolio "Yeah, let's get this over with."

They jumped back into the truck and drove another twenty minutes to the clothing factory in the next town over. "Hello, you must be Mr. Charusa and Miss. Harverd. My name is Dale Roberts, overseer of this factory. Please, come in."

Teardra nodded at him, making a note on her clipboard, trying to look professional. "Do the employees know that we are here?"

"No ma'am. You will see our factory as it is on a normal day."

She nodded and followed him around the building with Duo tagging behind, inspecting each piece of machinery more closely and planting the small bomb on one of them. The manager droned on, losing Teardra's attention except when she nodded or frowned at various intervals until she heard a loud explosion from a part of the factory below the floor they were on. "Oh shit." The man took off running with Teardra close behind. She spotted Duo disappear in the shadows, sneaking down to the main communication office. "I'm sorry Miss. Harverd." Dale apologized quickly "I don't know what happened. Rest assured, occurrences like this are not what you'd call common around here."

"That doesn't matter." She replied coolly, "The fact is that it did happen. Don't you have safety managers who are paid to prevent these kinds of accidents from happening?"

Duo crept around the corner and checked the hallway quickly before running over to the office and sliding a disk in the drive. "They've got a pretty expansive army." He commented, breaking through the security system and brining up the list of members in the army. "Maylm's on top with these two guys right underneath her." He gazed at the names Cyan Jameson and Safire Fearlon for a moment, committing them to memory. He quickly saved the file and all connecting files to the disk and ran back out to where Teardra was still shooting down their tour guide. "What was your analysis?" She turned to him

"Faulty wiring in machines 5 and 17. Too much rust on machine number 9. It doesn't meet safety regulations. This one obviously needed replacing quite some time ago." He tore off the pages of notes he had taken along the way. "Someone else will come back in thirty days to make sure you have fixed the problems. If you fail to meet safety regulations, this factory will be shut down."

Mr. Roberts meekly took the paper and escorted them to the door. They climbed into the truck and drove away, not bothering to look back. "Did you find everything?" Teardra asked

"Yep. The computer was easy enough to hack into. There are people that I want to ask Wysli, Kat, and Calisia about. Maybe they heard something about the two guys directly under Maylm in the organization."

"Let's just hope they don't realize that you were gone all that time." Teardra drove into the parking lot of the motel and then walked back up to their room. "At least I learned one thing from this mission." Teardra sighed and sank down on the bed

"That you're hopelessly in love with me?" Duo asked, his eyes lighting up

"Not quite. I just found out that high heeled shoes are the worse form of torture a woman could ever endure."

"Are you sure you didn't realize you love me?" Duo asked

Teardra sat up, glaring sparks at him "Duo, I'm going to tell you this once and only once and if you try to repeat this to any other living soul, I'll deny it and refuse you." Her voice began to get more and more agitated by the second. "The truth is, and it should be damned for being what it is…I fucking love you Duo Maxwell. I have from the start. God knows I want you so badly that it kills me inside."

"Wow." Duo's eyes nearly popped out of his head

"Yeah, that's right, I love you, I want you, I need you, now get the fuck away from me before I kill you." Teardra grabbed his bag and threw it at him before pushing him out of the room and slamming the door in his face.

Duo stood there in shock for a moment before turning and walking away, slinging his bag over his shoulder. If she didn't want him there, then there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it.

"I need a drink." He muttered; walking away from the motel and down to the area of the city composed of nothing but bars and strip joints. "It's times like these that I really wish that I was gay. Stupid fickle women, who in their right mind would tell someone that they loved them and then tell them to go away from they'll kill them?" Duo sighed and walked into the first bar he came to.

The inside was dark, with the stench of smoke and liquor in the air. A scantly clad woman was dancing up on the small stage in the front of the room, wailing along off key to an old love song. There were about twenty other girls walking around, serving drinks and entertaining various men.

Duo sat down at a table far away from the main crowd. He wasn't there to socialize, just to get drunk off his ass so he wouldn't remember anything in the morning. "What will it be?" A young blond girl wearing far too much eye make-up sauntered over to him.

"3 shots of tequila." He mumbled

"That depressed?" She quirked a forked eyebrow at him

"Dorothy? Dorothy Catalonia?" Duo squinted and finally saw through the layers of make-up and the tiny outfit to the violence-obsessed girl that had gotten involved in the AC 195 war.

Her sky blue eyes lit up for a moment "Duo Maxwell. I didn't quite recognize you without your infamous braid." The light left as quickly as it had appeared "It's Cat now though. Dorothy was killed after the last war. Her grandfather was upset after he discovered she had tried to kill the son of an influential assassinated pacifist. He disowned her from her family fortune, leaving her with nothing except the will to survive and a body that men were willing to pay money for. My story, Cat's story, begins and will end here, as a whore to humanity." She blinked back tears "I sing in a few minutes. If you'd like to stay, please do, it would do me good to see a friendly face in the audience instead of having to stare down at all of those disgusting lust driven animals." She sighed and turned away "I'll be back with your drinks in a moment."

Duo slammed his fist down on the table. Things weren't supposed to end like that. First Treize was assassinated, then Relena, and now Dorothy had to throw all of her pride away to work as a prostitute so she could keep on living.

The new girl up on the stage began to gyrate to an old rock song

  
  


When we were young 

The future was so bright

The old neighborhood was so alive

And every kid 

On the whole damn street

Was going to make it big

And not be beat

Now the neighborhood's cracked and torn

The kids are grown up 

But their lives are worn

How can one little street

Swallow so many lives

  
  


Dorothy came back over with a bottle of tequila and a handful of shot glasses. She poured him the three that he had ordered and then herself one which she drowned down quickly. "I'm up." She said, wiping her mouth off and walking up to the stage to grasp the microphone and sing out one of the saddest songs Duo has ever taken the time to listen to

  
  


Out in L.A. and broke on the ticket that this fellow sent me 

One change of clothes in the suitcase that my girlfriend Anna lent me

I stayed for a while in his place, runnin' with this crowd of his  
Partyin' day after day and meetin' everybody in the biz

  


Oh, they know how to do it in L. A.  
They know how to make it seem brand new

Though it's true what they say, that's it's only a dream  
and a dream is a wish you wish for you

In L.A., the dream may come true

  


After the booze and the coke, the visions of the blue pacific

After the two-hundredth time I told him he was just terrific

I woke up one late afternoon and didn't know quite where I was  
Leftover taste in my mouth, and with a morning-after buzz   
I packed my bag and split and found myself a dancin' job

Worked the bar for tips and stripped for every lonely slob

Counted every single minute as the hours went by

Then fell in bed and cried till there were no more tears to cry

You try to stop the thought from coming that it never ends

You think about how far you are from home and friends

You get through one day at a time; you find a way of stayin' numb

And don't look in the mirror to see what you've become  


But they know how to do it in L.A.

They know how to make it seem brand new

Thought it's true what they say, that's it's only a dream   
and a dream is a wish you wish for you

In L.A. the dream may come true

  
  


Yes, they know how to do it in L.A.

They know that somewhere up there the sky is blue

So smile when they say that it's only a dream

And you'll get what is comin' to you

In L.A.

In L.A.

In L.A. the dream may come true

  
  


Dorothy/Cat hung her head, a tear falling down from the bridge of her nose to land on the floor before she walked back to Duo's table. He couldn't think of anything to say to her. What was he supposed to say to a young girl that had just poured her disappointing life story out to a crowd of drunks that didn't care about what she had gone through, all they knew is that she was a beautiful girl that they would be able to buy for a night of sex. "How much do you charge for a night?" He finally asked

"25 an hour." Dorothy's face fell "I'm only an underage amateur after all."

Duo pulled the money out of his wallet and handed it to her. "Give this to your boss and tell him that you won't be coming back to work here again. We'll figure out some way to get you back on your feet. Make sure you get whatever you're going to need. You won't be coming back here again. This isn't a life meant for you."

Dorothy bowed slightly and took the money over to a man who was standing behind the bar. He frowned but then nodded as she spoke a bit more. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before running up a set of stairs and coming down about five minutes later with a small suitcase. She grabbed a thin gold cloak off of a coat rack in the back of the room and then walked back over to Duo.

They made their way over to a nicer part of the city where Duo got them a room in a hotel that was much nicer then the one he had left Teardra sitting in. Dorothy went into the shower almost immediately and reappeared looking much like her old self, only with a shorter haircut. "So what were you doing in a place like Larry's?" She asked, sinking down into one of the double beds in the room.

Duo hesitated "Girl problems." He finally admitted

She smiled broadly "The God of Death can't get a date?"

"Kind of. Let's just say the God of Death met a girl that can overpower him in attitude and piloting skills. She's also a complete ice princess so it looks like I'm out of luck."

"Do you mean an ice princess or the ice princess?"

"So you've read up on them too?" Duo asked

"I make it my point to learn about anyone with interesting abilities." Dorothy smiled again "You came in contact with Miss Teardra Lee if I'm not mistaken."

Duo sighed but then nodded "It's complicated."

"All of the interesting women in the universe are." She pointed out "You're just intimidated by the fact that there's a woman out there who won't just hope in your bed and take care of you, just because you're a Gundam pilot. She's nothing about your little girl friend Hilde, is she?"

"God…I haven't thought about her in the longest time. I left her in space after her wounds healed up. As helpful as that data on Libra was, she would have been too much of a bother on the battlefield. I finally had to end things with her and I made it clear to her that if she ever came after me again, I'd have to kill her."

"You do have a way of ending relationships, Mr. Maxwell."

"What about you?" Duo sat down on the end of the other bed "You can't tell me that this was the only option open for you to take."

"Duo, I'm still underage. I don't have any proof of identification to get my working papers so I could get any kind of decent jobs. Even if I did claim to be Dorothy Catalonia again, everyone here knows me as Cat and only Cat. Old Larry back at the bar asked my age because he had to. He knew I was lying but he didn't care. I could sing, dance, and I have a nice physical appearance; that was enough for him. That's not to say that he wasn't worried about me. He always made sure that I would be safe with whatever guy I was with at that point. Half of the girls back at that bar are pregnant or were at one point because their men were careless. He made sure that wasn't going to happen to me. I didn't like things there though, trust me. I gave my virginity up to a complete stranger when I was only 15 years old. I never saw the man again." Tears began to flow down her cheeks "I know this is going to sound stupid but for months after I started there, I kept hoping that Quatre would show up and whisk me away on his white horse to a happy ending. I hated that dream. I hated myself for being so weak that I fell for him. I hated believing in something that I knew would never happen but everyone there had their little fantasy that kept them alive. If you asked Kara what she was doing after she got off that night, she would just get this look in her eyes and she'd tell you that she was going home to her baby girl. The only problem is that girl had given herself an abortion when she was 6 months along…the baby was supposed to have been a girl. That's the kind of sick world that I've been living in. Quatre seemed so worried about me when I last saw him, I just kept hoping that he'd sense my situation and torment with that damned space heart and come save me from that world."

"You tried to kill him though." Duo raised an eyebrow

Her eyes lit up and she pulled herself to a sitting position "I did and I'd do it again if I ever get the chance."

"But why? Why would you try to kill the person you're in love with?"

"It's simple. You see if I killed him, then the rest of emotional problems would be over. I wouldn't owe anyone anything. That and the fact that my obsession means nothing anymore." Duo opened his mouth but she went on "Don't try to deny it. I know about him and Calisia VanMorate, the heiress to the fortune left behind when her family was killed in the bombing of that colony. Pacifists, all of them."

"What?" Duo stared at her "Are you trying to say that that chick back at our house with amnesia is actually a multi-millionaire?"

"Exactly. There are other things about her that I know but I can't tell you quite yet. Let's just say that she has her own little story to tell you when she regains her memory and Quatre is going to be rather surprised when he finds out."

"You sound angry at her." Duo noted

"I am. Because of her, whatever hope I had of my fantasy coming true was destroyed. He loves her, and she loves him, even though neither of them will admit to it. Just be forewarned, if I find her alone one day, I will kill her too."

Duo sighed, "I'm not going to be able to change your mind about any of this, am I?"

"Not in the least." She shook her head "This is Cat's life now, my life now, and unlike Dorothy, she's willing to do anything, absolutely anything to achieve her end results."

Duo shook his head "Tomorrow morning, I'll pay the hotel enough to keep you here for two weeks. Within the first few days, we'll send out identification for you, in Dorothy's name. Then you are to find a job, we'll keep track of you and if it looks like you won't be back on your feet, we'll get you an apartment, as long as you continue looking for work, understand?"

"I don't take charity from anyone." A spark of her old pride came back into play

"It's not charity. We're repaying you for the knowledge you gave us about life during the AC 195 war. After this, we'll be just like we were and you'll be free to do whatever you feel you need to do."

There was a pause "I understand."

"Good night, Dorothy."

"It's Cat, remember? Sleep well Duo."


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

(two weeks later)

  
  


"It's another mission, guys." Trowa plucked the package off of their front walk and brought it into the dinning room.

"This soon?" Calisia set down the book she was reading and frowned "I thought that she would have waited at least a month or so."

"We don't have the extra month to spare." He replied "We need to stop her as quickly as possible before this turns into another full blown war. If we stop this before it really has a chance to begin, we'll be saving the people a lot of pain and suffering."

"I'll go find everyone else." Calisia stood up and walked upstairs

"So where are we being sent off to this time?" Iris asked, clutching Orchide's hand underneath the table

Heero scanned through the papers that Qiera had sent them. "An outer space university as two junior students wanting to transfer schools and who are checking out different possibilities." He looked up at Wufei and nodded "This would be a good one for you to take care of."

Wufei nodded "And who will my accomplice be?"

Heero looked around the table at the other people sitting there "No, no, no, maybe, no, no, no…" He looked at Katya and nodded slowly "She wants us to get information on the history of the organization and most of the members to try and find a weakness that we can use against them. Your powers could really come in handy here."

"That's fine with me." She smiled, "When do we leave?"

Heero looked through the papers again, "You leave tomorrow morning and you should be gone four days at the most. There's a small apartment for the two of you to use on the campus. This isn't going to be a difficult mission, the computer data that we need is a password-protected file in the main office system. You should be able to hack into it without any problem. The campus maps, your identification, and student transfer papers are all here. You may want to start packing now so you can leave for the space-port tomorrow morning."

Katya stood up to walk up to her room and after sharing a quick smile, Wysli and Calisia followed her. "You're taking some of our clothes with you. Wysli decided after watching Katya pull out a few of her ankle length skirts and blouses, "If you want to look like a college student and if you want to seduce Wufei, you're going to need something more then those."

"What's wrong with the way I dress?" Katya protested, looking down at herself

"There's really nothing wrong with it if that's what you like. It's just…you don't look anything like a typical college student. You already dress like a docile housewife and you're only eighteen." Wysli walked out of the room and returned with an armful of clothes "All of my stuff would probably be too big on you but you and Calisia are almost the same size."

The two girls went through the pile and finally came up with four pairs of pants that Katya was willing to tolerate: khaki, black, blue, and one pair of red leather. "These would look nice on you. You definitely have the figure for them. Now shirts…" She pulled out the ones that matched the pants. "It's not quite what you're used to but they really will look good on you."

Katya sighed but packed the things she had loaned her along with a few of her own outfits. "I doubt these clothes would do anything for Wufei. He probably won't even notice that I'm there unless he absolutely has to."

"Katya, every guy has hormones, you just need to know how to wake them up and how to keep them going. Trust me, you're not going to be unhappy with the results. Just look at the guy, nice six pack, great muscles. I could just imagine what he's capable of." Wysli glanced over at Calisia who was cleaning up some of the mess on the floor "Lucky for Lisia, Quatre doesn't have much control and what little he has he loses just by looking at her."

Calisia blushed bright red "Nothing has happened." She protested 

"Something has. It's just that you aren't looking in the right places. Try glancing down once in awhile and I'm sure something will come up."

"I can't believe you just said that!" Katya nearly dropped a bottle of perfume on the floor

Calisia turned around slowly and glared daggers at the white haired girl "Just because you want to act like a whore and sleep with whatever guy crosses your path doesn't mean that the rest of us need to do the same. We're friends and if it goes any further then that, so be it. If it doesn't, then at least I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I hold myself in high enough respect that I don't need to be dependent on anyone else but myself." She turned and walked quickly out of the room

"Hmm…I guess I stepped on a few of her toes." Wysli mussed, rubbing some rose scented lotion into her hands

"She's right you know. You've started to change since we got here. Suddenly everything has to be about sex to you. Why can't you accept the fact that the two of them just want to be left alone about things and even if you can't accept it, just keep your mouth shut. I feel the same way about Wufei. I don't just want to sleep with him. Sleeping with someone doesn't necessarily mean that you love them anymore. That should come after the two people are ready to make a serious commitment to each other."

"With Wufei it would mean it." Wysli began to pick up the few things that Calisia had failed to "His sense of honor and integrity won't let him leave a girl behind once he's made love to her."

"I can't believe you said that!" Katya exclaimed, "If something does happen, I want it to be because we care about each other, not because we had sex and he feels he has an obligation to me."

"Suit yourself." Wysli shrugged and began to walk out of the room "It's your loss. I bet he's great in bed."

Katya just shook her head and continued to pack.

"I'm going to be driving you guys to the space-port so we'll have the truck here if we need it." Trowa spoke to them outside, early the next morning.

"Hai." Wufei nodded and held the truck door open so Katya could climb in, a common courtesy installed in him when he was very young.

The truck ride was completely silent until Katya switched on the radio to a soft rock station and began to sing along with the songs she knew. "I didn't know you were a singer." Trowa noted with some surprise

"I was sent to a finishing school instead of a high school for my junior and senior years. Vocal and instrumental studies were included in our education. I was home on a break when the colony was bombed."

"What instruments do you play?" He asked, now interested

"Piano, cello, French horn, but I'm partial to the oboe." She replied, "I've been hoping that you, Quatre, and myself could play together at some point."

"You still have your oboe?" Wufei asked

"Yes, it's under my bed where Satunia won't be able to wander. Do you play and instrument, Wufei?"

He nodded "I was taught how to play the drums when I was younger. My father hoped that if I tried something that he considered masculine, then I'd stop reading so much. My mother loved have a scholarly son and she always hoped that I'd become a lawyer or a politician but Father just wanted me to build up my strength and become a fighter, the career most men from our clan considered to be honorable. Until the war started up, it looked like Mother was going to get her wish, but then the Gundam were invented and once again, Father got his way in the end."

"So we're up to a quartet." Katya smiled, trying to ease the tension that had built up in the cab.

"We've probably got a whole band if you think about it. Duo knows how to play a little on the bass guitar and I heard Iris and Orchide talking to Quatre about the difference between the guitar, harp, and violin. I don't know about Wysli, Pearl, Teardra, Calisia, and Heero but most of us seem to have had some music in our backgrounds." He pulled into the parking lot and let them out. "We'll be trying to contact you the day after tomorrow so get to a computer around 10 and connect with the direct R-93374 line. It's impossible for anyone else to tap into it, Heero made sure of that. Good-luck you two." He left the two of them standing there with their suitcases.

"Where in the world did you get those clothes?" He finally asked, looking at the snug black pants and green tube top.

"They're Calisia's." Katya tugged up the top, suddenly self-couscous with him looking at her "She lent them to me so I'd look more like a college student."

"Hn." He grunted and then looked away

"You don't like them?" She asked, genuinely surprised "I though most guys liked their woman to dress like this."

"You look trashy." He said with disgust "No man wants their woman to walk around looking like a cheep whore."

Katya blushed and blinked back her tears "Would you prefer that I wore those skirts and blouses? That I look dull and older then what I really am?"

"Modesty is never unattractive. I did prefer the way you dressed before, at least then you looked like you some sense of dignity." He picked up their baggage effortlessly and walked off to the boarding gate.

Katya wiped away the tears that had managed to escape and looked after him "Damn you Wufei Chang." She whispered before running to catch up to him.

***

"Satunia, please be quiet." Calisia pleaded with the girl who had been wailing non-stop ever since Katya had left on the mission. Pearl had refused to take on the child again after her last experience with the girl and since the rest of the girls had either refused or were incapable of taking care of a baby, the job had fallen to her.

"I-want-my-Kat-mama!" Satunia choked out between sobs

"She'll be back in a few days." Calisia took her over to the rocking chair and began to try to rock her to sleep as a last resort to restore the peace and quiet that normally occupied the house at 2 in the morning.

"Don't wanna nap!" Satunia yelled, pushing herself away from Satunia and falling to the floor "Daddy!" She screamed at the top of her lungs as she noticed the rug burn appearing on her knee.

A boxer-clad Quatre came running into the room, his hair sticking up and about in every possible direction. "What's is it baby?" He asked, picking her up and shooting Calisia a curious look

"I-want-my-Kat-mama!" Satunia repeated, sticking her thumb in her mouth and looking up at him with her watery bronze eyes.

"She had to go somewhere for a few days. Calisia is going to help me take care of you until she comes back."

"No." Satunia decided and suddenly Calisia began to feel a strong pressure grasping around her throat.

"Quatre." She gasped out, her face taking on a blue tint.

He looked down at her and then at Satunia in shock. "Stop that!" She ordered, staring down at his daughter, as she seemed to relax, allowing Calisia to fall to the floor gasping for air. Quatre quickly set her down in her crib where she began to amuse herself with some toys, and bent down to help Calisia into a sitting position. "Are you going to be okay?" He asked

"I should be. I just can't believe she did that to me."

"I'm hoping that it's nothing personal against you." Quatre moved her hair aside so he could examine the bruises that were forming around her neck "If we're lucky, she's just upset that Katya isn't here and she's going to take it out on everyone."

"Why is that a good thing?" She asked

"It wouldn't be for everyone else but otherwise you two wouldn't be able to be put together anymore."

Calisia sighed and leaned against his shoulder, the color returning to her face "At least we now know that she definitely has some psychic powers."

"How are we going to teach her not to use them against people though?"

"Calisia looked up at him "I have no clue." She murmured

Their eyes met and it was as if lightning had started to course through their veins. Calisia unconsciously wet her lips and let her eyelids drift shut as she saw his face beginning to move towards hers. It was the briefest of kisses; once, twice, a soft gentle touch that had been building up ever since they had met. They pulled apart quickly, their faces tinted with matching shades of pink. Nothing else was said between them, they just sat there looking at each other until Duo's voice split through the silence. "Quatre, you need to get back in here now!"

He smiled shyly at Calisia and gave her hand a quick squeeze before standing up "I guess they need me for something. Satunia should be fine for awhile now, you should probably try to get some sleep before she wakes up again." He turned and walked out of the room, heaving a soft sigh as he walked back into the room he shared with the other guys, all of who were crowded around the windows. "What's going on?" He asked

"We've got company." Duo pointed to three dark figures creeping around the house.

"Any clue who it could be?" He asked, gazing down at them

"Not yet but I'm going to find out." Heero grabbed a handgun from his top dresser drawer and stalked out of the room, holding it against his side.

"Are you sure this is where they're staying?" One of the figures glanced up at the house doubtfully "I haven't seen any sign of their mobile suits yet."

Another voice, this one male, answered her "All of the data we were given check out. They're here somewhere, we just better make this as quick as we possibly can."

"We don't want to become a burden on them." Another woman agreed. The three of them crept closer to the back door until the flood of light nearly drowned them.

"Identify yourselves now!" Heero commanded

"Or you'll have a date with the God of Death!" Duo threw in his tag line happily, peeping out from around Heero's taut form.

"Heero, Duo." The first woman smiled happily

"Lucrenzia Noin?" Heero asked, gazing out at the other two figures still in the shadows "Zechs?"

"Sally Po." Duo grinned, "How did you three manage to track us down?"

"It looks like we have a common friend as well as a common enemy." Sally walked into the light and smiled broadly "Qiera told us we'd find you guys here. However, until this point we doubted how reliable she really was."

"Let's go inside to finish this." Heero moved aside so the three former pilots could walk into the kitchen. "Why are you here?"

"We decided to save you some time by getting you copies of the designs for Maylm's new suits." Zechs took out a set of about twenty blue prints and five disks of data "However, tracking you down was proving rather difficult. We found the mansion where Relena was murdered and figured you had been there at one point after we found the burnt area in the jungle but couldn't figure out where you had gone. Why did you decide to kill her finally?"

"It wasn't me." Heero glared at him "She was just another victim of Maylm's ruthlessness."

"Qiera ended up finding us though and told us that if we would be willing to help fight on your side then she would tell us where to find you." Sally said

"She's developing new suits?" Trowa asked, only wanting to hear the necessary data

"Quatre, what's going on?" Calisia glanced down at the people below. "Oh, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude but you are you?"

"I'd say." Teardra stalked down the stairs with the rest of the girls, with the exception of Iris, following behind her

"These are some old friends of ours." Quatre chose the words carefully "Sally Po, Zechs Merquize, and Lucrenzia Noin."

"It's Lucrenzia Merquize." She blushed, the light shining on the two rings she wore, a thin gold band and a gold ring set with three diamonds. She smiled up at Zechs "I finally got what I had waited my whole life for."

Zechs didn't say anything but instead wrapped his hand around hers. Wysli, who had been studying him with some interest, frowned momentarily but hid her obvious displeasure about the facts when Trowa shot her a curious glance.

"How many girls have you managed to pick up?" Sally asked, looking at the five standing there "Qiera mentioned more then this. I can't remember exactly how many though."

"Wysli Marie Sertory, Teardra Lee Altric, Pearl Robyn Johansin, Calisia Rose VanMorate," Her eyes widened and looked at Duo as he spoke her surname. She mouthed it a few times, as if trying to attach a family to the surname that she had heard for the first time. "Orchide Christine Aquinia, Iris Tereesa Tornadro is upstairs sleeping, and Katya Anne Ruvera, is out on a mission with Wufei. That's seven." Duo finished counting them out

"Eight if you count Satunia." Quatre pointed out and then explained further to rid Zechs, Sally, and Lucrenzia of their confused expressions. "Satunia Jane Winner, she's my daughter."

"What?" Lucrenzia's jaw dropped 

"He found her on the lunar base. Her mother had already died along with the rest of her family so Quatre adopted her. Katya has stayed with us as a nanny and the situation has worked out for the best." Trowa spoke up

"Whatever you say." Zechs shrugged it off and unrolled the first design "this is what she's calling the Aquarius suit. It comes in both space and Earth models and is primarily an air suit although it does posses the ability to fight on ground with decent results. You shouldn't have too much trouble with these ones. Their main weapons are laser cannons and a thermal flame gun embedded on the left arm. It's like a slower, less powerful version of Altron."

Sally picked up the next "Here's the space fortress that she has hidden in the L-538824 sector. It's twice the size that Libra was and has three times the defense. It's listed under the name Sagittarius and is equipped with dual beam cannons on either side. It also has a powerful enough engine to retreat quickly from battles. Once we destroy Maylm, her two main advisors, and that battleship, we can end all of these problems before they get too far out of hand."

"Here's where you're going to have trouble." Lucrenzia slapped down another sheet "These are the Gemini suits and even with the Gundam, they'll be difficult to defeat."

"They don't look any different then the Virgos." Duo noticed

"Look closer." Sally pointed to the back of the suit "They're equipped with a program that allows them to manufacture a clone from the scraps of the original destroyed suit. You have to hit the memory box directly or they'll keep redeveloping and you'll never be able to get rid of them."

"Are the weapons and defense mechanisms the same as the Virgo?" Heero asked

"Yes, beam cannon and magnetic field." Zechs pointed them out on the diagram

"Then we can still beat them if we update the suits." Heero decided

"You'll have help on the other fronts too." Noin spread out two other blue prints "Howard is updating the Tallgeese II to make it as quick and as powerful as the Eternity Gundam. He's also developing a Scorpio suit for the Magunac corp. to use on the Earth if they wish to fight. He took the laser tail from Altron, the body of the Pieces, and turned it all into a close range ground combat unit. It would be very easy for these suits to be hidden in the desert so they could come in handy." She went through and explained them both in more detail.

"How long are you planning on staying?" Pearl asked, yawning

"We're here until the Gundam get updated. After that we're going back to space to help Howard with some things. After your last mission in completed, then we'll initiate the final battle."

"Hai." Heero grunted, bringing over his laptop and inserting the data from the suits into a new file that would determine the upgrades that would need to be made on the Gundams.

"Sally, there's an extra bed in Teardra, Iris, and Orchide's room that you can use. This couch fold out into a bed that you two could use if that's what you'd prefer." Quatre nodded at Lucrenzia and Zechs, always trying to be the gracious host.

"That sounds fine, thank you." Noin smiled

***

Katya sighed as she curled up on her side of the bed. The apartment they were staying in was nice enough with a kitchen, dinning room, living area, bathroom, and bedroom, but it was made with a married couple in mind. For God's sake, there was even a mirror above the bed and bathtub.

She flopped over on her back and gazed at Wufei's still form next to her. Wysli's last words kept echoing through her head, even though she kept trying to push them away. It wasn't any of her business how good he was in bed. After what he had told her the day before, she had lost almost all hope that anything would happen between them.

She glanced at the clock on her bedside table and forced herself into the bathroom where she took a quick shower and pulled on her clothes, not wanting to wear the ones Calisia had lent her. She gazed at her face in the mirror, sighed, and then walked into the kitchen to make breakfast.

Wufei woke up an hour later to the smell of fresh bread, eggs, cheese, and coffee. "You made all of this?" He asked, noting her outfit with a half smile.

She nodded "We're going to be moving around a lot today and I figured we might as well eat a decent breakfast in case we don't have time for lunch. She brought a plate, glass of orange juice, and cup of coffee out to the table. "Go ahead and start eating, my omelet will be done in a minute or so.

He said a short prayer to bless the food and then bean to eat "This is good." He remarked after taking a bite of his cheese and green pepper omelet and finding it light and evenly cooked.

She brought her own plate out to join him "Just another lesson from finishing school." She took a few bites and then set her fork down "How are we going to do this?" She asked

Wufei finished chewing, dabbed his mouth with his napkin and then spoke "For today we're not going to do anything. We'll get the information tomorrow and then stay one extra day so we don't make them suspicious. All you have to do is keep using those powers of yours to find as much out as you can. Just don't let people find out too much about you. If for some reason people start asking too many questions, you're going to have to lie to them. Just remember, your name is Eileen Fisher." She picked up his plate "Thanks for breakfast. I'm going to go sit in on a few classes and then go to the library. If you need to find me for something, just remember I'm going by the name Hoshi Yakamuchi."

"Just leave the dishes in the sink and I'll take care of them before I go out."

"Fine." Katya heard the dishes rattle in the sink before he left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

***

  
  


"Okay, everyone just increase the power in all thermal energy weapons by 150% and override the old defense shields so the new ones can receive the power." Sally tapped into a laptop that was connected to Altron's internal systems. "After that, we're done and you should be fine out in the battlefield again."

"Mission complete." Heero finished work on the Eternity Gundam and then shut it down so he could wait for the others at the top of the canyon.

"I have a great idea!" Duo exclaimed when they were all walking back to the house "Let's get drunk off our asses!"

"What's the fun in that?" Quatre asked

"It's something to do." Duo shrugged

"Fine." Heero agreed quickly, making Trowa raise an eyebrow at him, but then he too smiled.

"Sounds good, it's been awhile since I've had the time to let go."

"Who would have thought the Gundam pilots were all alcoholics." Sally shook her head "Count me in."

"Will Noin and Zechs be joining us?" Quatre asked

"Just call her Lucy now." Sally reminded him "Probably. They haven't been drunk since their honeymoon and that was awhile ago."

"Great!" Duo ran back to the house at full speed to alert everyone else of their plans.

A few hours and a few bottles later, everyone except for Wysli had passed out on the floor. Wysli took another shot of vodka and giggled when the shot glass fell out of her hand to land on Zechs. 

"Wha?" His eyes opened halfway and tried to focus on her "Why you do that for?"

Wysli just giggled again and reached over him for the bottle, only to roll off of the couch she was lying on to land on top of him. "I guess I missed." She laid her head down on his chest and curled up.

"Yous shouldn't do that." Zechs tried to think logically through the alcohol haze in his head

"Mmm." She snuggled closer to him "I guess I'm a bad girl then."

Zechs sighed and somehow managed to get to his feet "You should go to bed." He slurred, "That's what bad girls need to do."

"Only if you go with me." She tossed her hair over his shoulders and let the straps on her shirt fall down, making Zechs swallow hard

"I'm gonna put you up there where you belong." He finally decided, "Then I'll come back down here to sleep."

"Whatever you say." Wysli stripped off her shirt and tossed it at him. Zechs picked her up effortlessly and slowly climbed the stairs to her room. The door opened and then shut again but Zechs never reappeared downstairs.

***

  
  


"So did you find anything interesting yesterday?" Wufei asked Katya over another big breakfast.

"Not really. All of the people I spoke to were just your average college students. It looks like the only people working for her here would be the administration."

"That makes things easier then." Wufei took his dishes back to the kitchen and returned with the map of the campus. "We'll just go into talk to the financial advisor like we originally planned and at one point, I'll excuse myself to go to the restroom but instead, I'll be looking for the easiest possible route to the main computer bay. When I come back, I will have set my cell phone to ring about 10 minutes later. At that time, I'll break in, get the data and come back. All you have to do is keep talking to that advisor and if she starts to ask questions, make up a story. Actually, it says on my forms that I have an older brother. Just do something along the line of his wife is in the hospital giving birth and he's a nervous wreck so I'm calming him down. That should work fine."

She stared down at her thin-banded gold watch "We have fifteen minutes to walk over there."

Wufei nodded and grabbed his leather jacket from the hook on the back of the door and began to walk down the stairs. After grabbing her own lightweight green jacket, Katya followed him quickly across the campus, clutching the folder that contained all of their false information. 

They took the elevator up to the sixth floor and walked up to the man at the desk. "Appointment for Yakamuchi?" Wufei asked

The man typed into his files and then looked up at him with a very fake looking smile "If the two of you will take a seat, Mrs. Thomas will be with you shortly. She's just finishing up with another student right now."

"Thank you." Katya followed Wufei to the chairs furthest away from everyone else in the room.

"Watch that door over there." Wufei murmured to her while opening up the map of the building he had picked up. "Every other closet, office, and room is clearly labeled both in the buildings and on the map. There isn't a sign on the door and it's very conveniently hidden on the map without a label. I'm pretty sure that's the room we're looking for. That man just left there when we were getting out of the elevator. Just look at the security systems he has to get through just to get back inside. The main computer is probably down there."

"So how do you think you're going to get through all of that security?" Katya asked

"I'll probably have to go through the heating vents." He gazed at the map and then pulled out a different map of the internal structures of the building that Qiera had thought to include. "See, there's a vent that has an opening inside the men's room ceiling that follows down to that left side of that room. I've got a small screwdriver in my pocket that should be able to get me inside. You just leave the sneaking to me and concentrate on keeping that woman distracted."

"Mr. Yakamuchi?" A pleasant looking middle-aged woman stood in the doorway of a medium sized office.

"Hn." Wufei folded the map and placed it in his pocket before the two of them followed her inside.

"Now, I've looked over your financial and academic forms and it looks like you'll both be receiving the Maylm Carolina Presidential Scholarship."

"Maylm? Like Mayhem?" Katya asked trying to sound interested

Mrs. Thomas frowned "Maylm Carolina Hernendez is the youngest daughter of the founder of this institution. That scholarship is worth $7000 annually as long as you maintain a 3.5 GPA, so please in the future remember to be a little bit more respectful towards her." The woman kept speaking as she rummaged through the various scattered papers on her desk.

"I'll be right back." Wufei stood up suddenly "Go ahead and keep talking. Eileen can fill me in later."

The woman nodded and waved him out of the room, never stopping her lecture on the various kinds of grants and loans that would be available for them.

Wufei made his way to the men's room and then studied the area. "If I'm correct, the heater will be going along here but I don't see any vents." He studied the area close to the door critically "Unless…" He hopped up onto the counter and moved aside one of the ceiling tiles to reveal a large vent running along the area "Bingo." He crawled up over to it and began to loosen the screws with the small portable screwdriver until he could set it aside and crawl back down to the floor below. After wiping off his footprints from the white porcelain counter, he programmed his cell phone to ring ten minutes later and then connect with a machine he had set up back in their room that would speak back to him and then quickly made his way back to the office, not wanting to be gone an suspiciously long amount of time. Mrs. Thomas was just beginning to dissect their financial aid package and he forced himself to pay attention, even though it was quite obvious that they wouldn't need to know any of it, unless the wars suddenly stopped and he would be able to get into a decent college to study medicine like he had always wanted. He smiled, thinking of the times he had spend on L-5 bandaging up and trying to cure any hurt animal he could find. Bird, cats, deer, frog, other neighbor hood children, he loved holding a life in his hand. 

The beeping of the cell phone brought him back to reality. He answered it, speaking to the prerecorded message. Mrs. Thomas looked up from her papers, rather irritated. "I'm sorry but I need to speak with my brother. I'll be back as soon as I can."

The financial aid advisor sighed and looked to Katya for an explanation. "His sister-in-law went into labor earlier this morning and his brother is a nervous wreck. Things weren't progressing the way they're supposed to. Hoshi is a very collected man and hopefully he'll be able to calm his brother down before he does something too rash."

"I see." Mrs. Thomas seemed satisfied with her reply and went back to her sermon, leaving Katya to heave a silent sigh of relief.

Wufei slipped out of his jacket and hid it off to the side of the vent before slipping inside and maneuvering his way towards that room set in the back of the building. Not caring anymore about being able to return looking presentable, Wufei let his hair fall down and his clothing quickly became caked with grime from the inside of that vent. "Gotcha." He muttered to himself, gazing out into the nearly empty room. The only person he spotted in there was a young man, pacing back and forth. Wufei pulled out a bottle of weak poison and hit the side of the vent loud enough to draw the man's attention over to him. When he bent down to see inside of the vent, Wufei splashed a few drops of the potion into his eyes and within minutes, the man was lying asleep on the floor. 

Knowing that he had to work quickly, Wufei unscrewed the vent and hopped out into the room. He slipped on a pair of gloves and dragged the man over to the computer to use his DNA to break through the barriers. "Verified." The a mechanical voice within the computer decided "Proceed."

Wufei slipped his disk into the computer and began to copy the information to it quickly "This organization has been around for about 13 years." He noticed, raising an eyebrow "It's amazing that they've been able to keep something this extensive a secret for this long." He ejected the disk and grabbed it to slip it into his pocket. That was a big mistake.

The computer began to emit a loud bleeping noise and the room began to flash with red lights. "Damn it." Wufei swore, tossing the man down to the ground and running back to the vents as he heard the doors at the top of the stairs start to open. He fixed the vent as quickly as he could and began to crawl back up to the men's room. He fixed the other vent in the ceiling above the men's room, grabbed his jacket and slipped the disk inside a hidden pocket in the lining before hopping back down and wiping off his footprints and cleaning himself off. He had just pulled out his cell phone and started to speak again when a group of three large men burst into the bathroom and slammed him up against the wall "What are you doing in here?" One of them demanded

Wufei covered the cell phone receiver with the palm of his hand, playing his charade to the fullest "My sister-in-law is giving birth and it's not going well. I'm trying to calm my brother down."

"Have you seen anything suspicious happening in here?" Another asked, searching the area quickly

"Do you mean the guy that dropped down from the ceiling? I just assumed his was a maintenance worker."

They shoved the butt of a rifle into his chest "What did he look like?" The first one demanded

"Tall, green eyed…really bright green eyes. It would be kind of hard to forget them. He was wearing all black and a hat so I didn't really notice anything else. Like I said, I thought that he was a maintenance worker so I didn't pay really close attention."

The third one motioned the two of them out of the room "We'll call all members of the student body with green eyes down to the auditorium to check out there stories." The other two ran out quickly behind him.

Wufei finished cleaning up the marks he had missed before and then gazed at himself in the mirror "We have to leave here as soon as possible. It won't take too long for them to realize that I was lying to them." He shoved the phone in his pocket and then scrubbed his eyes and cheeks until they were red, puffy, and covered with water droplets.

He walked out of the bathroom, making himself look as distressed as possible. "Are you okay?" Katya asked as he walked back into the office.

He nodded "The baby was a stillbirth. Tayuki is heartbroken and Anchika is still in really bad shape. They wanted that baby so much…" He looked up at Katya, his face so dark she wanted to hug him and make him feel better, even though she knew it was all part of their story. "We have to leave here now. I need to be with them."

"You have my deepest condolences." Mrs. Thomas nodded sympathetically, "Give your brother and his wife my best."

"Thank you." Wufei replied simply before taking Katya's hand and leading her out of the door and back to their apartment. 

"What went wrong?" She asked, "Things started to sound crazy out there and I was getting worried."

"I messed up and the computer realized that I wasn't a certified user and it alerted the soldiers. We have to leave here as soon as we can before they realize that I was lying to them. I just didn't realize the machine monitors the user all the time. Most just demand identification when the user logs on. They got a sample of strange DNA and went nuts. It's going to look suspicious that we left this suddenly but hopefully they buy our story long enough for us to get back home." He finished tossing his clothes into his suitcase and snapped it shut "Are you ready?"

"Almost. You may want to call Trowa and let him know that we're coming back sooner then planned so he can meet us back at the airport."

"No, it's too risky. We'll take a cab to the nearest town and then walk back." He decided, helping her fold the last pairs of pants

"Okay, let's get going before they really increase the security around here." Katya picked up her suitcase, shut off the light and walked out of the apartment behind him.

***

The pilots began to move again around seven the next morning. "My head!" Orchide moaned, "I don't ever want to do that again."

"Me neither." Iris agreed, sitting up slowly and wincing in the light

"Quatre? How did you manage to pass out? You only took two shots that I saw." Pearl pulled a pillow over her eyes

"So I can't hold any alcohol. Big deal." He sat up, finding that he felt much better then what he had expected.

"You're being too loud." Calisia murmured, snuggling back down into a pillow.

"Has anyone seen Zechs lately?" Lucy asked

"Is he in the bathroom?" Sally Po asked

"If he throws up then I'm gonna be losing a whole lot of respect for him." Duo shook his head and then grimaced, obviously regretting his hasty action.

"I never heard him move and I've been up for awhile now." Trowa mentally noticed that Wysli was missing as well.

"Where did Wysli go?" Heero asked, as if reading his mind

"Probly wit him." Teardra slurred. She obviously had woken up before the others to begin drinking again. "Did ya see how she wuz looking at him yestaday?"

Lucy's face when even paler then what the alcohol had caused her to do. "He wouldn't." But she bit her lip and forced herself to walk up the stairs and into Wysli's bedroom where she let out a loud cry. "Zechs, how could you do this to us?" She began to sob after stopping his and Wysli's naked bodies curled up together on one of the beds.

"Wha?" Zechs opened his eyes and then jumped out of the bed, clutching the sheet around his waist "Lucy...I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" She choked out through her tears "You really think that's going to change things?"

Wysli rolled over and looked up at the two of them "Sorry but I'm too tired for a threesome right now. Come back later on if you're still interested and I'll think about it then." She rolled back over and went back to sleep

Lucy's jaw dropped as she forced herself to blink back the rest of her tears "Just get dressed, we're leaving now." She threw his discarded pants at him and ran back downstairs where she began to gather her things together without saying a word to anyone. Quatre opened his mouth to speak to her but shut it quickly when Trowa shot him a warning glance. 

Zechs came down a few minutes later, unable to look any of the other pilots in the eye, he had succumbed to one of the seven deadly sins. Lust had torn him down from his indestructible platform and had proven him too weak to remain in there presence any longer. Lucy refused to look him in the eye but instead grabbed her bags and ran out the door. Zechs picked up his jacket and silently followed her out. "Are you going with them?" Duo asked Sally Po

"I'd much rather stay here with you and work on these missions, but someone has to stir up some controversy in space and it looks like Lucy and Zechs have some problems of their own to work out right now. I'd better catch up to them before I get left behind. Thank you for the hospitality and we'll see you all again eventually. Just when we do, please try to keep Wysli away from Lucy or I'm afraid we'll be seeing some bloodshed." Sally picked up the blueprints and left the house.

"What about me?" Wysli came walking downstairs in a snug violet mini-dress that hugged her every curve "How could you people expect me to sleep off this hangover with people running in and out of my room?"

The room below was silent until Pearl glared at her "What in the hell were you thinking? What the fuck were you trying to do? Wysli, you may have just torn apart a perfectly happy married couple because you couldn't keep your legs together? Why in the world would you do something like that?"

Wysli shrugged and walked into the kitchen "I wanted to, he was hot and I wanted him. All guys have hormones and that prissy little bitch obviously wasn't giving him what he wanted." She left them all shocked behind him

Wufei and Katya opened the front door, only to walk into a silent room "Why were those three here?" He asked

"They brought us the new mobile suits designs and helped us update the Gundams accordingly." Heero answered "Why are you back so soon?"

"I made an error that forced us to evacuate sooner then we had originally planned. We didn't want to call back and warn you because they may have been watching us."

"Why was that blue haired woman crying so hard?" Katya asked

"You'll have to ask Wysli about that one." Calisia replied shortly

"Trowa, why didn't you want me to talk to her?" Quatre asked suddenly "She obviously needed someone who still seemed like they cared about her. I've never seen her look that way before."

Trowa shook his head and gazed out the window at the vanishing three figures "Quatre, just remember, you should never mess with a woman who has been scorned. They'll never act like themselves again."

  
  



End file.
